


Adventures Around the Milky Way

by Kamechan98



Category: Avengers (Comics), Avengers Assemble (Cartoon), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Action, Adventure, Aliens, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Space, Artist Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton & Tony Stark Friendship, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Clint Barton has hearing aids, Developing Friendships, Drama, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, Monsters, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Natasha and Clint are adopted siblings, Outer Space, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Thor (Marvel), Romance, Steve Rogers Feels, Suspense, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Thor is Norwegian, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, and a really good guy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-10-30 01:47:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20806496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamechan98/pseuds/Kamechan98
Summary: This is a story about six teenagers, all between fifteen and sixteen years old, and all with different backgrounds and lives. The only thing they have in common is that they go to the same high school and they are outsiders and outcasts in their school. And when they all end up going to the same summer camp, they suddenly find themselves on a mission in space, so secret that they don't even know what it is.It’s a story about adventure, suspense, action, friendship and romance. It's a story with mysteries, monsters and surprises around every corner as well as nail-biting suspense and even a little danger.Sounds like a normal summer vacation, right?





	1. Meet Our Losers

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a new story that I came up with some time ago. I got inspiration for it from a kid's program from my country about a group of kids going into space on a mission, but that's all I will tell you for now. The rest is a secret for you to find out if you keep reading.

_This is a story about six teenagers, all with very different backgrounds, lives and personalities. The only thing they have in common is that they go to the same high school and are all going to the same summer camp for the summer, when suddenly they find themselves on a mission in space, so secret that they don't even know what it is._

_It's a story about adventure, suspense, action, friendship and romance. It's a story with mysteries, monsters and surprises around every corner as well as nail-biting suspense and even a little danger._

_And it starts, like many good stories, with a high school…_

* * *

Tony sighed as he pulled up in the school’s parking lot. _‘Okay Stark, you can do this. Last day of school, then summer. You’ll be okay.’_ He groaned and rested his forehead against the steering wheel. He wasn’t doing a very good jump pumping himself up for his final day of sophomore year, but he also knew he could stay in in car forever, so just grabbed his bag and got out of the car.

“Okay, let’s just this this over with.” He locked the car and slowly started to make his towards the school. He thought back to what Jarvis had said to him before he left and sighed.

_‘Have a nice day at school, young sir.’_

Tony rolled his eyes and shook his head. Yeah, like high school ever had any ‘good days’. Especially when you have little to no friends. Sure, he had Rhodey and Pepper and he sometimes talked a little to Bruce Banner in science class and math class, but it wasn’t much against the rest of the school hating his guts.

He adjusted the bag straps over his shoulders, took a deep breath and started to walk towards the school, hoping he could disappear in the crowd.

_‘Come on, last day of school Tony, you can do this.’ _

But he hardly got to finish that thought before he was stopped just as he entered the building. And surprise, surprise it was Tiberius Stone, followed by Aldrich Killian and Justin Hammer, his little posse of wannabes and assholes.

Tony closed his eyes and held back a tired and frustrated groan. Not even five seconds into school and he _already_ ran into them. That had to be some kind of record. But he knew better than to let any of his frustrations or anger show, because that was exactly what they wanted after all. So he plastered on his best ‘PR Smile’ as he had dubbed it and looked Ty right in the eyes.

“Hi, guys! Stone, Killian, Hammer, always a pleasure. Come to wish me a happy summer already? Aw, that’s sweet of you guys; you didn’t have to do that! Also, isn’t it a bit early for that?“ Ty smirked wickedly at him and stepped forward, his smile very wide but his eyes were unsettling, the way they always were.

“Hey Tony. We just wanted to talk a little, you know, like friends do.” Tony only barely managed to hold himself back from visibly shuddering, because the way he said the word ‘friends’ made his skin crawl. It always did.

Justin sneered at him, taking a step forward.

“Yeah, can’t a couple of guys just talk without it meaning anything?” Tony almost rolled his eyes. Seriously, if Justin weren’t hanging around Ty and Aldrich all the time, he would never see him as a threat or even a bully. He was nothing but a wannabe who was trying way too hard to be cool and suave but was failing on that front, even when he was hanging around them like a lost puppy.

Basically, Hammer was Heather Duke and Ty was Heather Chandler.

If only Tony could be more like Veronica in this moment.

Aldrich came up to him and- while he wasn’t as popular or as bad as Ty- he was way more suave and manipulative than Hammer. He was a bit cooler than Ty, not quick to anger and could almost make Tony play into a lot of schemes. Thankfully Tony knew better now and refused to listen to anything he said, but he was still a very smooth talker.

“We just wanted to check up on an old friend, Tony. Like, how have you been doing lately? Come on, you can’t be surprised that we’re wondering. We’ve gotten pretty close over the years, haven’t we?” Tony tilted his head and raised his eyebrow at Ty. Close? Close what? It’s not like they had ever been friends, even though they had been in the same class since third grade, aside from Ty who was a junior.

Or would be until this day was over and he become be a senior next Fall.

Tony shrugged and tried for an easy smile. He figured it was better to play dumb in this situation, despite feeling vey uncomfortable around these guys.

“Close what, friends? Well yeah, we have known each other since grade school, so I guess that makes sense.” Ty smirked evilly and leaned over him, making Tony very aware of the very clear size difference between them. Not that Tony was short exactly; he was around average for a sixteen year old, standing at 5 foot 7 inches. But Ty was a football player, was almost 6 feet tall and he was more than twice as wide and big as him since Tony, despite all of his attempts at working out and doing of lot of work with machines and engines, had failed to get any visible muscles.

“Well no, I was thinking of something else, actually. I mean, school will be over soon and your friends will be going away for a few weeks, aren’t they?” He leaned in a little closer. “If you want I could help keeping you _company_ if you’d like.”

Tony froze and immediately had to start blinking. Oh he had to go _there_, didn’t he? It wasn’t enough to spread rumors, to bully and harass him and even beat him up every once in a while and practically ruin any chances of Tony making friends, he had to go for his sex life as well? Hadn’t he kicked in that door enough as it was?

He swallowed, puffed out his chest and looked Ty right in the eyes. “Oh yeah, uh thanks for the offer, but I have plans for the summer too. My parents have planned a trip to Paris and I have to go with them whether I like it or not.”

It was a lie. His parents did have a trip planed for the summer, that much he knew, but it wasn’t to Paris and they hadn’t forced him to come along. In fact, they hadn’t even told him to his face and he had heard it when they were talking to each other in his dad’s office without knowing he was outside listening to them.

Which stung, like it always did when they didn’t want to spend time with him. But Ty and these asshats didn’t need to know that.

Ty smirked at him. “Well, if you’d like me to help you feel better before you leave, you only need to ask.” He leaned in closer to his face, a predatory smirk spreading over whole face. “After all, we all know how much you like it.”

Tony was so close to quaking in his boots. He couldn’t help it; Ty had always had that kind of grip over him. No matter how tough he was or tried to act, he could never really stand up to Ty. Hammer, sure! Killian, probably. But not Ty.

Aldrich shoved his way up to Ty’s side and sneered down at Tony, almost as predatory as Ty did. “Hey, Stone, if you’re gonna have some fun with him, you have to share!” He leaned down to be on eye level with Tony. “You’d like that wouldn’t you, you little whore? You’d just love to have a strong man’s hands all over you, wouldn’t you?”

Hammer also shoved his way up to Ty’s side, trying for a similar smirk like Ty’s and Killian’s, but didn’t quite make it, which ironically helped calm Tony’s nerves. But before he could speak, Ty cut him off, leaning in closer and pressing Tony up against a locker.”

“Don’t think you can fool us, you little bitch! Everyone in this school knows the truth; that you’re nothing but a trashy, dirty little slut who acts like he’s better than every one. But we know that you’re just a poser, and you’re dad’s company is gonna tank the second you take over. If he ever lets you run it, that is.”

Tony was close to tears and caught between a rock and a hard place. He needed to get away, soon, or who knows what he would do. Normally he would yell back and tell Ty exactly where to shove it, but he’d been caught off guard and now didn’t know how he would get away from this, since he was cornered by three guys, two of which were taller and bigger than him, so-

Then he heard someone clearing their throat from behind them, and the guys turned to look, only to see Natasha Romanov stand very close to them leaning on her hip and her hands on her sides, tapping her foot impatiently.

“Are you gonna stand there forever? You’re blocking the entrance.” Her words weren’t much, but her voice was ice cold, daring them to talk back to her or say anything at all that wasn’t ‘No’ or ‘sorry’ before moving out of the way.

Ty and his little lackeys were staring at her, wide eyes and terrified before slowly moving out the way and mutter apologies as she passed them with a cold glare, her green eyes probably drilling into their very souls. And Tony would probably also having terrified of her if he wasn’t so busy slipping away from Ty and run off down the hallway.

She hadn’t done it to defend him, he knew that much. Natasha was never nice to anyone except for brother, and she was just annoyed with them blocking the way into school, that was all. He knew better than to fool himself into believing that there was someone in this school that cared about him, aside from Rhodey and Pepper.

As he made his way down the hallway he felt people stare at him and heard them whisper or laugh as he passed them. He didn’t care what were saying, because it was never anything new. There was nothing they could say about him that he hadn’t already heard from everyone else.

Tony Stark is a rich asshole

Tony Stark is a know-it-all son of a bitch

Tony Stark is an attention whore

Tony Stark pays others to have sex with him

Tony Stark is a grotsky little byotch

Tony Stark is an egocentric narcissist

Tony Stark is a poser and a fake genius

Tony Stark is a fugly slut

Tony Stark is a heartless monster

He’d heard it all, ever since fifth grade the rumors had been running wild and they had gotten more and more hurtful and terrible with every year.

And sure, some of it was based on some kind of weird truth. He did act like an asshole while in school, he acted like he didn’t care about anything and joked about just about everything and he did act like a narcissist, but most of it was dialed up to eleven and people treated him like a bad guy from a movie or something.

And of course there were comments about his looks. And he wasn’t ‘ugly’ exactly; he had good features and a symmetrical face, big brown eyes, a straight nose and excellent bone structure. But he also had big, bulky hipster glasses and he had a bit of a problem with zits. And it wasn’t so much that there were many of them, it was just that they always refused to go away entirely. His hair- while thick and clean enough- was a mess of dark brown untamable curls and he was thin and lanky, which not only made him look smaller than weaker than he actually was, it also made his clothes end up looking awkward on him even if they were in his size, which apparently wasn’t considered attractive by most kids in school.

He just ended up looking a like a stereotypical nerd with expensive, fancy clothes and slightly better looks than most other nerds, most of the time.

People kept saying he looked a lot like his father did when he had been his age, but his dad was way more attractive and was called handsome left and right and Tony was… not.

He had actually been called an ugly duckling for years before they all got older, started high school and everyone started to call him a fugly slut instead. He could only hope that he might turn out to be a swan someday.

And sure, he probably didn’t help any of this with his own attitude and acting like an asshole and like he had ego bigger than the sun and like he thought the universe revolved around him, plus rub his genius in people’s faces, but what was he supposed to do? There was no way he could change what people thought of him anyway and he couldn’t make those rumors go away, so if everyone was going to see him as an asshole and a slut, he might as well act the part. Because who cares? High school is nothing, he’d be gone in a few years, go to MIT and never look back at Shield high ever again, move on to become a great engineer and just put everything behind him.

He groaned as he made his way into the classroom, taking a breath through his nose and closes his eyes as he sat down in his seat.

_‘Two years down, two to go.’_

* * *

Bruce left science class and tried to keep his head down and make himself as small as he could, clutching his books tightly to his chest. So far, so good. He’d managed to get between his first few classes without any real trouble or bumping into any assholes.

Well, Tony was kind of an asshole at times, but in some weird way Bruce found himself laughing at his jokes more often than getting angry at his rudeness or his reckless antics. It was weird, but maybe he was just playing it up. Bruce had heard a whole lot of rumors about Tony Stark, but he didn’t really pay much attention to rumors. And considering the rumors that were floating around about him, he knew that most rumors were just bullshit anyway.

And really, what is a byotch anyway? Like, was it a bitch but different somehow?

They weren’t friends exactly, but they did greet each other every now and then when they passed each other in the hallways. But other than that, Bruce was alone for the most part and usually spent all his time away from classes in the library to hide from bullies or jerks or assholes?

But as he made his way towards his next class, he felt someone yank on his hoodie and pull him backwards. He yelped and almost tripped, dropping his books on the floor, one of then landing on his foot. He looked up at the person who had pulled him back and saw it was Emil Blonsky and Thaddeus Ross, who had been out to get him for years. And Bruce wasn’t entirely sure why if he’d done anything to this guy, but since when did that ever matter to a bully?

Blonsky smirked down at Bruce, towering over him by at least four inches. “Hello Banner. Still wearing that hoodie as the rest of the month?” Ross smirked and elbowed him with a snort.

“I saw him at a thrift store the other day. He came out of there with two bags of hoodies like that.” Bruce didn’t say anything in response. He knew he didn’t have a lot of clothes and wore a lot of the same stuff every day and that he looked really unkempt, with his shaggy hair and slightly big and dirty clothes and the tattered bag he had slung over his shoulder. But living with only one parent, who didn’t make a lot of money, was kinda testing on your bank account.

Still, he clenched his fists tightly to hold back his temper and dug his nails into his palms to keep himself from getting angry. People didn’t really like him when he was angry. Bruce adjusted his hoodie and picked up his books, taking deep breaths to try and control his temper.

It always surprised a lot of people that he had a very fiery temper and could loose it when he was pushed to far, and he’d been working hard at controlling said temper so he wouldn’t completely loose it someone. Not that he could actually take any of these guys in a fight, but he was stronger than he looked, despite being a bit short and not particularly muscle-y.

When he turned to leave when Ross moved ahead of him, blocking the way with his body.

“Going somewhere?” Bruce shrugged and tried to breathe calmly.

“Um, yeah, to class.” Blonsky smirked and shook his head before reaching out his hand towards Bruce, as if he was expecting him to give him something.

“What about our homework?” Bruce raised and eyebrow at him, more confused than angry at this point.

“What homework?” Ross narrowed his eyes at him and turned towards him, while still blocking his way. He was also much taller than him bigger with more muscle mass than him.

“The homework you were gonna do for us, remember?” Homework? It was the last day of school, the grades were already set so what were they talking about? He shook his head and gripped his books tighter.

“It’s the last day of school. What homework would you need to turn in?” Blonsky narrowed his eyes and took a step forward, trying to corner him against a wall.

“Are you talking back to us? Listen Banner, there’s one thing you need to learn here; when we tell you to do something, you damn well do it. You think you’re better than us, because you’re a fucking nerd-“ He was cut off as someone ‘bumped’ into him and he in turn tripped into Ross.

“Oh! Oh my god, I am so, so sorry for that! Gosh, I’m such a klutz, really, I can’t go anywhere without making a mess of things.” Bruce looked up and saw Tony stand there, his face looking shocked and worried but it was very obviously fake, and his voice matched it very well.

But he barely had time to say anything before Ross and Blonsky straightened back up and started to yell at Tony for not looking where he was going and being blind and stupid and ‘did those fucking glasses not make him see what was right in fucking front of him!’ While Tony was standing there ‘apologizing’ to them, he turned to Bruce and motioned with his head at him to get going while the two guys still yelled him. Bruce mouthed a quick, ‘thank you’ to him before quickly running off towards his next class.

Yeah, Tony was okay. Maybe even a bit better than okay.

_‘Just keep your head down, Bruce. You’ll be okay, just gotta make it to 4pm and you’ll be okay.’_

* * *

Steve was sitting alone at his and Bucky’s usual table and sketching while slowly eating his lunch, letting the sounds of the cafeteria fade away around him. Which was not the easiest thing to do, but he’d had years of practice drowning out noise of other kids and classmates.

Bucky had texted him and said he wouldn’t come to school today, which meant Steve was alone to fend off other kids as he tried to survive the last day. Again, not the easiest thing to do, considering he had no other friends to talk to or any other way to pass the time.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t know other kids in school. He kinda knew Sam and Thor from football and he kinda talked with a few kids from art class. But Bucky was the only real friend he had, and now that he was sick that meant he was alone to deal with Schmidt and his gang of bullies and assholes. Not that he had ever been one to back down from a fight if he needed to fight back or felt compelled to help someone else out, but he’d rather get through this last day of school without getting in trouble with the principal. Or worse, his mother. Again.

“Eating alone today, are we Rogers?”

Steve groaned and put his pen down. _‘Speak of the devil and he shall appear.’_ He turned to look over his shoulder and saw Johann Schmidt with Brock Rumlow on his right, like some kind of right hand man or something.

“What do you want now, Schmidt? Don’t you have anything better to do than hang over my shoulder all the time?” Schmidt smirked evilly and folded his arms over his chest, his black leather jacket squeaking at the movements.

“Oh, so defensive Steven. I just wanted to see how my old friend is doing, all alone with no friends to eat with.” Steve gritted his teeth and tried to breathe calmly through his nose so he wouldn’t loose his temper. _‘He’s trying to get a rise out of you, Rogers,’_ that little voice that sounded an awful lot of Bucky, told him. _‘Don’t let him get to you, it’s just what he wants.’_

“I was doing just fine, until you showed up uninvited. Now kindly fuck off.” He turned back to his lunch and sketchbook, when it was suddenly yanked from the table and Rumlow went through the pages with a big smirk on his face.

“Ooh, you drew anything good, Rogers?” Steve flew up from his seat and went to take it back, when Rumlow quickly passed it to Schmidt, who also started to look through it, his smirk widening as he flicked from page to page.

“Hm, very nice Steven. But do people know that you draw them without knowing about it?” Steve flew forward to grab it, but Rumlow grabbed him in a tight grip and held him back from grabbing Schmidt. And Schmidt was just smirking as he turned the sketchbook around to show him a drawing of the cheerleaders at practice.

“My, my Rogers, are you looking at girls and drawing them without consent? I can’t imagine they’d like it. And who’s this?” He flipped the page, a picture of a girl at a table in the library, who was drawn in more detail and with her long hair flowing around her in a bright red. “Is that Romanov? Why Steven, do we have a thing for Russians?”

Steve growled and tried to rip himself free out of Rumlow’s grip. Yes, he had drawn Natasha Romanov while she was studying in the library. No, he did not have a crush on her. Yes, she was pretty and was nice to look at. No, he did not have any lustful or romantic feelings towards her. He drew a lot of people while in school, in as much detail as he could, it didn’t mean anything. Not that Schmidt would listen if he tried to say that, but still.

“Give it back Schmidt, or I swear to God-“ Rumlow laughed and held him tighter.

“You know she would never touch your ass in a million years, right? She has hundreds of guys chasing her and that want to be her boyfriend, and you think you have a shot with her? Keep dreaming Rogers, you’re never gonna get with her.” Steve tried to rip himself out of Rumlow’s grip again and almost succeeded at making him loosen his grip, only for him to tightening it again in a split second.

Schmidt motioned at Rumlow and he made Steve lean forward so he was bent over, and Schmidt gripped his jaw, tightly. “Yes, he is right about that. And you know why that is? Because you can act like you’re above everyone here all you want, and like you’re too good to hang out with anyone here. But you know that you’re on the same level as the freaks and the nerds!” He made Steve turn his head towards a few other tables. The first table he was forced to look at was one with the kids that were seen as strange or unable to get boxed into another click, and he saw Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, Loki Odinson and of course Natasha and her adopted brother Clint Barton sit, eating and talking amongst themselves.

And sure, there were rumors about Clint, like how Clint was from a family of circus freaks or how his real dad had killed his little brother when they were kids and Clint had run off to join a circus when he was really young before being put in an orphanage and eventually got adopted when he was seven.

Or how Natasha’s parents had been assassins and trained her to be one before they were killed when she was very young and she had- somehow- made her way to America on her own as an illegal immigrant before also being put in the same orphanage as Clint and they got adopted at the same time. Or how, because she was a Russian, she had filled her locker with weapons, threatened people with violence when they annoyed her and that she was drinking vodka from water bottles during class or lunch.

Steve had no idea if any of those rumors were true, but both Natasha and Clint were very good at gymnastics, and he was scary good at archery and she was an expert at martial arts. So the idea that Clint might have had a past with some kind of circus, and Natasha might have been trained since very young to do these things, since she had this dangerous air about her, which made most people stay away from her while still gawking at her beauty. But Steve had never been one to listen too much to rumors so he didn’t really believe it. Well, not much anyway.

Still, they were very hard to ignore.

Then he was forced to look at a few other tables, and he only recognized a few of the kids. Bruce Banner from science class- who he had defended from bullies once or twice-, Jane Foster who was Thor’s girlfriend (he was sitting there with her too), her best friend Darcy, Reed and Susan and a few others who were classified as ‘nerds’ and were mocked for it.

In the corner of his eye he also saw another, smaller table where Tony Stark was sitting with two other, slightly older kids: a girl with long red hair and freckles and a well built, tall, African American guy. He kinda recognized the guy, as he was on the football team but he had never talked to him. Though he was sure he was a James, just like Bucky.

But he knew who Stark was and though he had never actually talked to him, he had a very strong dislike for the guy. He was loud and obnoxious and inappropriate and a total asshole to everyone, making jokes out of everything and got in everyone’s faces about being a genius and seemed to think the world revolved around him.

And that wasn’t even touching the rumors that surrounded him.

His face was jerked back and he was forced to look back at Schmidt. “The thing is, they are above you for one single fact; they have a click and a group that they belong too. The second Barnes gets sick or just doesn’t come to school; you’re on your own. You could be one of the great sport stars and a really popular kid if you really wanted to, but you choose not to be. And you don’t hang out with the art freaks either, because you think you’re above it all. But you can’t fool me, Rogers. You know you’re nothing without Barnes and you know it too. You can turn your nose up at us all you want, and you can act like you think we’re immature or stupid or whatever, but I know it’s because they don’t want you either. Ever since you both came to this school, everyone has tried to make friends with you but you refuse and now they hate you because you act so stuck up. But this school is for special kids, kids with great potential, but where’s yours? Oh, that’s right, you don’t have any.”

He smirked and leaned in closer, till he was inches away from his face and whispered into his ear. “You don’t belong here, Rogers. You should go back to Brooklyn and stay with your kind of people; poor and mediocre. You’re _nothing_ Rogers.”

And with that, Rumlow finally let him go and Schmidt dropped the sketchbook on the table and they left. Steve stared after them and panted heavily and angrily at their backs as they left and rubbed his aching arms. He wanted to run after them and give them a piece of his mind, but he also really wanted to get through today without causing a fight. He didn’t want to come home to his mother and say he got into _another_ fight, and this time not even for defending anyone from bullies but not just losing his temper when an asshole taunted him.

His mom would grab him by the ear and give him the scolding of a lifetime if she heard he got himself in trouble again, especially at the end of the school year.

He sighed and put his sketchbook and pencils into his backpack and got back to his lunch, eating as fast as he could so he could leave soon.

_‘Come on, Rogers. Just a few more hours of school and you’re done. A few more hours and then it’s summer break. Even if you have to go that stupid camp, at least you’ll have a summer with Bucky.’_

* * *

Natasha sat in a toilet cubicle, waiting it out in the girl’s locker room with a half-full water bottle in her hand. The other girls would be done changing soon and then they would leave and she could get away from their bitching. Not that she couldn’t handle them and their bullshit, she knew she could, but she wasn’t sure if she could hold herself back from hurting them if she was out there with them and she didn’t want to cause any trouble. Not today, not with only a few hours left of school. She and Clint had agreed to not get into any trouble today and had promised Phil that they wouldn’t, and she intended to keep it.

She’d broken enough promises to Phil as it was.

She’d just gotten back from gym class, which she was very, very good at, but she could always feel the other girls glare at her and throw dirty looks at her. And she didn’t really care about what they thought of her, normally, but it did tear at her to constantly know and hear what they were thinking about her, whispering and talking behind her back or try to trip her up or make her feel like trash, as much as she liked to pretend that it didn’t.

And she also knew what would happen if she did fight back and slap one of them across the face, and she couldn’t get kicked out of yet _another_ school for ‘assaulting’ other students. The excuse of PTSD only got her so far and couldn’t be used as an excuse for her whole life. It didn’t even really work anymore as it was. It had been more than ten years now and even school psychiatrists and psychologists told her that it shouldn’t bother her as much as it used to when she was younger. And no matter what Phil said, the school refused to cut her any more slack, so if she hurt any of the girls or even tried to fight back, she knew they would go crying to the principal and tell their own version of what happened. And he would believe them and refuse to even listen to her version and she would get kicked out. Again.

A loud _BANG_ was heard as someone kicked the door to the cubicle she was sitting in, making her jump, jolt out of her thoughts and almost drop her water bottle. She had put her feet up, so in case anyone walked in they wouldn’t see her, but of course they would anyway, considering it was the only that was locked.

“Still hiding in the bathroom, Romanov? Or maybe you’re drinking that whole bottle of vodka you brought to school, huh?” That was Sharon. Because of course it was Sharon, she’d hated her guts since Coach Fury had told her she could be an amazing cheerleader if she wanted to be, probably the best on the team. Natasha, of course, had no interest of becoming a cheerleader, but Sharon still acted like she had been wronged and did everything she could to make Natasha’s life miserable. Especially since she realized that Natasha couldn’t fight back, no matter how much she wanted to.

Also, it didn’t help that the girls kept throwing Russian stereotypes at her, despite not having lived in Russia since she was five years old.

“I know you’re in there, Romanov, I can smell your trashiness from here, you little slut! Your freak brother can’t always protect you, you piece of shit!”

Oh yeah, because she totally needed Clint to survive the day like some kind of bodyguard. Sure, they looked out for each other, always had and always would. But more often than not, _she_ was the one who got _him_ out of trouble. At least she never mouthed off to people or got violent. At least not too badly.

She rolled her eyes and leaned back against the wall of the cubicle, taking a long sip from her water bottle, while also registering the sound of water running.. “Which is it, Sharon? Am I a slut, or a shit? Make up your mind.” She made it a point to keep her voice low and calm, but still loud enough to be heard.

“You’re trash!” Sharon yelled and Natasha heard the water get turned off and then she heard the scraping of a plastic bag being dragged across the floor. She knew what was coming, because it always did. She reached for backpack, pulled out her umbrella and opened it just in time for a big pile of trash and water hit her from above, the smell of garbage, old food and used tampons and sanitary pads attacking her nostrils along with dirty sink water.

“At least now you’ll smell better.” She heard laughing from other girls, other mindless little cheerleaders that followed Sharon everywhere like lambs, before they left the room and slammed the door behind them.

She sighed, got off the toilet and carefully got out of the cubicle and shook off the trash and water from her umbrella before drying it off and putting it back in her bag. The fact that the ‘throw-water-and-trash-at-Natasha’ thing had happened so many times over the past year that she had _needed_ to start bringing her umbrella to school every day was getting really, really pathetic. But it was better than being covered in trash and used tampons for a whole day.

After taking a quick shower and changing her back into her regular clothes, she got out of the locker room and started towards her next class. And along the way, it was always the same. Guys stared at her like she was either a goddess or a monster of some sort and girls ran away from her or glared at her, spelling out their hatred or fear for her very clearly.

It had been like that since she had first hit puberty and started to become less of a girl and more of a woman, as she got big tits and a curvy enough body to attract all of the attention from every guy in school, and the girls hated her for that. And guys were terrified because they thought she was bringing weapons and guns to school (because Russian) and would jump at the chance to kill any American she could.

Not that they ever said anything to her face, even Sharon and her posse always made sure to have a door or a wall between them or that they were standing with enough distance between them so she couldn’t do anything about it other than ‘overhear it’. But she knew, she always knew. Clint could make all the Mean Girls jokes he wanted about her hair being big and full of secrets, but the truth was that she was good at figuring things out about people. She had good eyes and ears and so she learned all lot of things about people that they more than likely wouldn’t like to have revealed.

Like how Sharon, for all her slut shaming and calling her a whore or whatever, was the first girl in their class who’d had sex. With a college kid, of all things.

Or how Johann Schmidt ran a small club in school he claimed to be about history, but was really about benefits and greatness of National Socialism and Nazism, which the school didn’t know about and if they did would probably get him kicked out in seconds.

Or how Tony Stark, the only kid who was more slut-shamed than her, was a virgin, just like her. Poor guy was probably the most hated guy in school for no good reason other than he was born in a rich and powerful family.

She never said anything about these things, because if she ever did plan of revealing these things she wanted to make it hurt. She’d like to have all her cards sorted out and make sure the people would suffer as she revealed it. Or it was just nice to know these things without them knowing about it. It made it a little more bearable, she supposed.

She reached her classroom and sighed softly to herself as she made her way to her seat. _‘More than half the day is over now, Romanov. Just a few more classes and it’s over, then you’re free.’_

* * *

Thor had never been to America before moving here from Norway with his father, mother and brother, due to his father needing to work in America for a few years. And so far he couldn’t say he was too impressed by its residents.

Now, he had made some acquaintances with a few other young students, such as Bruce Banner, and had even managed to obtain a lovely girlfriend in Jane Foster and made friends with her friends. But the negative attitude that was simmering in this city was almost enough to choke him at times. And while Loki had been fortunate enough to find a click that more or less suited him- a strange little group of mixed individuals- Thor had a bit more of a tough time finding a good place among his peers, before finally joined the football team. But he still could not help but feel that- as nice as some of the people were at this school- they were laughing at him behind his back or made jokes at his expense.

And it was true that he spoke a bit differently from the other students, both with his accent and also his vocabulary as he was still struggling with the language in this fair city of New York. He had enough self-awareness to know that he could sound a little strange at times compared to the other students, but he still did not understand why they felt the need to laugh at him solely for this. Ever since he had started at this school he had heard so many jests at his expense, all from Viking jokes to mocking his way of speaking and name-calling.

As the bell signaling the end of class chimed, Thor collected his math books before hurrying out of the classroom so he might have a chance to speak with his lovely Jane before next class. They did not share many classes and he very much wanted to speak with her as much as he could.

He did find her by their lockers, but she was not alone. Another young man was standing very close to her and talking in a manner that Thor could only assume was flirting, and he would have been enraged at this had he not seen the held back anger and annoyance on his lovely Jane’s face.

“Aw, come on Foster, can’t you just come out with me tonight? It’s summer, we could celebrate that school’s finally out, together.” Jane rolled her eyes at before smacking his arm when he tried to put it around her, glaring daggers at him. Thor would not like to be on the receiving end of that particular look.

“I told you, Pierce, I’m not interested. One, I have a boyfriend, so no. Two, even if I didn’t have a boyfriend, I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last guy on planet Earth. So kindly get lost before I tell Darcy to whip out her taser. Again.”

Pierce did move back a little, but he was still far too close for Thor’s liking. He rolled his eyes and leaned against the lockers, looking rather annoyed now. “Seriously Foster, what do you see in that guy? He’s a total freak, I mean have you heard how he talks?” Jane smacked him again, this time in the face and threatened him with a fist.

“I’m serious, Pierce, get lost or you get the taser!” Thor decided that he needed to interfere and moved up to his girlfriend’s side, putting his arm around her.

“Does this man bother you, Jane? Shall I take care off him and vanquish him to another room?” Before Jane could respond, Pierce groaned and rolled his eyes at him.

“Ugh, seriously what is your malfunction, are you retarded or something? I get it, you’re Norwegian and the language is too tough for you, but real humans don’t talk like that! You live in America now, speak like an American!” Jane’s face turned red with anger and started to stomp up to him, but Thor grabbed her arm and gently pulled her back.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I do not understand this statement. How does one speak ‘American?’ I was under the belief that you speak English here in this fairy country, but perhaps I was wrong?” Jane snorted and covered her mouth so she wouldn’t burst into laughter, and Thor preened a little at having made his lovely girlfriend laugh.

Pierce wasn’t smiling however, not even a little. He just glared at him, stalked up him and, despite being at least a foot shorter and much smaller in size and muscle, tried to get up in Thor’s face. “Ugh, seriously, you are such a freak, Odinson! Your brother speaks better English than you and he’s a Goth freak! This is not an old story about knights and Ye Olde English, so stop talking like that! Or are your kind really so stupid that you can’t talk like real humans from this century?”

Thor immediately felt the anger brew up and he grabbed the young man by his collar and pressed him up against a locker. “You dare insult the house of Odin? And you dare speak of my brother and people in such vulgar fashion?! I demand you apologize this instant, or I will make you the price!”

Jane started to pull on his arm and yell at him to release this young man called Pierce. “Thor, come on, stop it! He’s not worth it, you’ll get in trouble!” Thor looked at her, then back at Pierce and then saw that a crowd of people had formed around them. And he had the strangest feeling that they didn’t exactly form to see justice being served. So he dropped Pierce, who coughed and clutched at his throat before glaring up at him.

“God, you _are_ a freak! Go back to the woods and fjords, you fucking Viking freak!” Then he turned tail and hurried away. And as Thor looked after him he started to hear the words Viking freak being whispered around him and other students were either laughing at him or glaring angrily at him.

Jane gently took him by the arm and led him away from the crowd and towards the classroom of his next class, but the damage had already been done. Thor knew that he’d had a hard time understanding the students around him, but now he knew it would be impossible to get on their level, as he was now being dubbed Viking freak by his peers.

He looked down at his wristwatch. _‘School is almost over now. One final class and it’s over.’_

* * *

Clint grinned as the bell _finally_ rang and declared the class, and whole day, was _finally_ over. He hurried up from his chair, almost ran into Steve Rogers as he was on his way out, quickly apologized and kept hurrying. The Corridors were now full of other kids that were hurrying to gather their things from their lockers before getting out of the building.

Natasha would probably already be waiting by his locker when he got there. She always managed to beat him in most things, despite his best efforts to try and beat her in something. Sure, he had better aim than her and always beat her in games or tasks that required good aim, but that was mostly it. Still, she was his sister in everything but blood and so it was her job to drive him crazy and yet somehow he would love her at the end of the day.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt if he for once could just-

He suddenly fell forward and hit the ground and only realized once he was lying on the floor that someone had tripped him. He heard laughs from somewhere behind him and he quickly got up on his knees so he could see who it was.

And of course it was Brock Rumlow, because who else would it be? That guy was out to get him, Clint swore up and down that he was. And now he was laughing along with a few buddies, as Clint was still half-lying on the floor.

“Oops, sorry Cunt, I didn’t you there. Are you okay?” His voice was very obviously mocking him and his friends laughed even harder. Clint narrowed his eyes at the nickname and the mocking before getting back up on his feet, glaring at Rumlow.

“Oh yeah, haha, very funny Rumlow! You’re such a fucking riot I might piss myself laughing so hard!” Rumlow just laughed some more before walking up to Clint, smirking and folded his arms over his chest.

“Oh, what’s the matter Cunt? Did you scrape your knee? Do you need mommy to kiss it an make it better?” He spoke in a patronizing, baby voice and did a little pout, just because he could. Clint gritted his teeth and tried to take deep breath so he wouldn’t do something stupid. School was over, he was free from this guy for the next ten weeks. Why did he waste time on this guy and stay around here like a moron.

He lifted his chin defiantly and gritted out while looking him right in the eyes, “My name is _Clint_.” Before turning on his heel made turned to leave, when Rumlow called after him.

“Oh I know, but that name’s hardly better. Would you prefer Circus Freak, you little bastard?” Clint froze up and turned to look at him, indignation quickly turning into anger. He clenched his fists and turned to look at him, holding himself back from storm up to the guy.

“You got something you wanna say Rumlow or are just gonna stand there hog time from my summer break? ‘Cause I got stuff to do, places to be and none of them are you.” He smirked mockingly and made lewd hand gesture. “Unless you’re into that stuff, ‘cause I’d love to see how much you like me shoving my arrow right up your ass.”

To his small delight there were a few laughs around him and Rumlow turned bright red, though he wasn’t sure if it was because of humiliation or anger. Maybe both? Then he grinned again and put his hands on his hips.

“Well, I guess that’s how you did things in your house, did you? Did your daddy shove his arrow up your ass or did they teach you that at the circus?” Clint’s smirk turned into grimace and he took another deep breath.

“Nah, it’s just something I like to do to guys I don’t like. I like to hear their screams of pain and agony then my arrow penetrates their target.” Rumlow didn’t blush this time but there were some people that laughed around him. He just smirked wider.

“Yeah, you probably like that, cuz you know no one will ever love you. Just like your parents didn’t love you or your brother. Your dad probably loved you about as much loved the smell his own shit and would’ve loved to kill you too if you didn’t run away.”

Okay, now he was really pushing it and it was becoming harder to come up with jokes to play off his insults with. He took another breath and cupped his hand behind his ear, like one might do when they wanted to hear better.

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that, my hearing aids don’t pick up idiocy very well.” There were fewer snickers this time, but he didn’t really care about that, he just wanted to stick it to this asshole. Rumlow snorted and walked up closer to him.

“Well then, let me talk a little clearer, maybe they’ll pick this up: you are a fucking freak that even the circus didn’t want, so what makes you think we want you here? You and your freaky sister were put in the system as orphan kids, and why do think that is? Because your parents didn’t love you, they probably didn’t even like you! So why don’t you crawl back to the circus or whatever, find some place that actually want you there, if you actually find something.” Clint’s fingers itched and he wanted so badly to punch him in the face, and he almost did, when another voice cut through the crowd.

“Oh, so here’s the kindergarten, huh?” Everybody turned to look as Natasha came walking through the corridor, the crowd parting for her like Moses parted the Red Sea. She had her eyes locked on Rumlow and marched up to him, getting right up in his face. “Well, aren’t you going to pick on me now?”

Clint always loved watching Natasha do these things, ‘cause it looked so funny. Like, Natasha wasn’t that tall or muscular, maybe 5 foot 7 inches and 130 pounds, and Rumlow both taller and heavier than her. And yet he looked at her and looked absolutely terrified.

“U-uh…” He swallowed and backed away a little, but Natasha just followed him and stayed very close to him. “N-no, I… I was just…” She narrowed her eyes at and him stared him down.

“Don’t ever do that again!” She snapped and raised her hand threateningly. “Or you’ll be very sorry.” Rumlow was quiet, but nodded and he turned tail and almost ran the other way with his friends right behind him.

Natasha turned to him, her face softening slightly and she looked him over, before grabbing the backpack he had dropped on the floor when he fell. “Sometimes I think you like pissing off these guys until they pound you into the ground. What if one day I’m not here to save your ass?” Clint rolled his eyes and dusted off his jeans and t-shirt.

“I’m fine Natasha, he barely even touched me. And you didn’t have intervene like that, I was fine.” She rolled her eyes and handed him the bag.

“Yeah, he looked like was just getting ready to back off and run.” She took his arm and started to lead him towards the exit. “Now come on, Phil had something he wanted to talk about when we got back home.” Clint nodded and finally sighed in relief as they left the school.

_‘Finally. School’s over and it’s summer! Freedom and sun and relaxing, here I come!’_


	2. Everything Is Set Into Motion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our Heroes all find out they're going to summer camp for the whole summer and surprised to find that they're all going with a bunch of people from their class that they've barely talked to before. And suddenly, their taxi breaks down miles away from the city and they're left all alone with no means to get help or go back home.
> 
> Only good things can come from that, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am going to be honest with you guys, this was very hard to write because it was basically the same as last chapter, only a slower and basically went through the same scenario over and over again, but I think I finally got it well enough. 
> 
> I hope you’ll like it!

_“Are you sure about these humans, sir?”_

_“Yes. They all have the skills necessary to fulfill this mission. They are perfect for this cause.”_

_“They are volatile and unpredictable, sir. They will not be compatible to work as a team, nevermind for a mission such as this. We should find others-”_

_“Nonsense, they are going to be perfect for the job, I am sure of it. Now, the seeds have already been planted. The parents have fulfilled their part and they will all be together at the designated inception point tomorrow. We will move on to Phase 2 once they arrive here. You know your tasks, lieutenant.”_

_“Yes, as you wish, Commander.”_

* * *

_"Welcome to Camp Delight! A place where you can spend your summer without homework, parents and curfews! A place full of pleasure, amazing fun and playful Raccoons! And to you parents, don’t you want your kids to be out in the fresh, forest air rather than the stuffy city air? Or to find good friendships that will last a lifetime rather than hang around with hooligans? _

_To spend your summer at Camp Delight is not only a wise investment but also a guarantee for a fun and unforgettable summer! You can pay with Visa, MasterCard or American Express and make sure your kids have the summer of a lifetime! See you there!"_

Tony stared down at the tablet that forced into his hands the second he’d gotten home, grimacing at the commercial he had just been forced to watch, because what the hell was that? 'A summer of pleasure, amazing fun and playful raccoons', what the fuck kind of slogan was that? And did they think that poor guy running around in that stupid raccoon suit was supposed to make kids jump with joy and beg their parents to please let them go to that camp?

He looked up at his mother, who was standing beside him with a wide and simpering smile on her face. That honestly made it worse, because it made him feel like she thought he was five years old again and not sixteen, and that he still loved to run around and play with his toys in the garden. His father also stood close by, but at least he wasn't even trying to look like he thought Tony would like it.

"Well, what did you think?" Tony tried for a smile, but it probably just ended up looking very awkward and he put the tablet back down on the table.

"Wow, that was… certainly something." He tried to sound somewhat glad because he knew she just wanted him to be happy, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't like whatever was connected to his parents sitting him down to watch that stupid commercial.

His mother stroke his hair back softly with a gentle smile. "Your father and I have been talking about what you should be doing this summer, and since you've done so well with your classes and didn't even cause a lab fire this year-" Tony rolled his eyes and resisted the urge to groan. Seriously, you accidently set a_ few_ school laboratories on fire and none _ever_ lets you forget it. "-We have decided to let you to a camp this summer! So you can meet other kids your age and have some fun!"

Wait, what? Go to a camp? With a bunch of kids that had to be several years younger than him and also spend his whole summer in nature and miles away from any Wi-Fi or air conditioning? No way, no way in hell was he doing that!

"What?! But mom, you know I don't like outside stuff! I wouldn't have any fun being there, you have realize that!" Dad rolled his eyes with a loud and disapproving scoff, turning away from them and folding his arms over his chest. Mom sat down beside him and gently stroke his hair out of his face.

"I know it might not seem like your cup of tea, honey. But you spend so much time working in your workshop whenever you're not in school and it's just not healthy. You need to get outside, get some sun and fresh air and I really think a camp away from the city and away from everything going on here could do you some good."

Tony rolled his eyes again. _'Oh yeah, that sounds like a blast, doesn't it? Ten weeks stuck at a nature prison with some other kids he couldn't care less about or and without any Internet, stuff to tinker with and surrounded by bugs, poison ivy and ticks. Just what I've always wanted.'_

He opened his mouth to speak, but his father glared down at him; firm and practically daring him to speak back to him. "Anthony, this is not up for discussion. Your mother and I have made our decision, you will go to this camp for the summer. We have already booked in a vacation and after your stunt last summer; you can erase any ideas or hope that we'll ever let you stay alone in this house again. Jarvis is upstairs packing your bags right now and the taxi will come and pick you up tomorrow morning."

And there it was. They were going on their vacation and needed to get rid off him, since they obviously didn’t trust him to be left alone in the house, since Jarvis would also be taking a few weeks off while they were away since there wouldn’t be too many people to look after anymore.

Not that there were many people in the house anyway, but who cares about semantics?

So they had to dump him somewhere, and of course it had to be in a fucking summer camp for babies.

Tony tried to grin while fighting against every urge to scream or cry to throw a tantrum over this. "Okay, fine. Sounds like it'll be a blast." Not.

He went upstairs to his room afterwards, where Jarvis was just closing his bags and placing them against the wall of his room. He looked up at Tony and smiled softly. "Young sir, I have just finished helping you pack your clothes. I figured I'd let you pack your other things for yourself." His smile turned pityingly. "I assume they have told you the news?"

Tony sighed and flopped down on the bed, placing an arm over his eyes. "I won't survive this, Jarvis! A whole ten weeks without my workshop or any Internet or anything I like! This summer will be my undoing, just wait and see."

Jarvis chuckled and sat down on the bed beside him, patting his shoulder. "I'm sure it won't be that bad, Tony. It might not seem very fun right now, but I believe that you will find this summer very rewarding. It is often by doing things outside of our comfort zone and try new things that we learn the most about ourselves. And who knows, maybe you'll make some friends over the summer?"

Tony rolled his eyes while still pressing his arm over his eyes. Sure, like he could make friends with anyone in that kind of environment. Kids in his school only saw him as a spoiled, rich brat who had never worked a day in his life, so what were the chances of anyone seeing him in a better light at a freaking nature camp?

And sure, he probably didn't make it better with his obnoxious attitude and big ego, but it was better than the alternative.

His only real friends were Pepper and Rhodey and they were all away on vacations with their families so he'd been content on being alone for this summer and work on his projects.

Until now, of course.

"I don't think I can, Jarvis. I'm bad at making friends, you know that." Jarvis squeezed his shoulder and stood up.

"Well, I wouldn't say that Tony. You are a very good boy, with wit and charm and humor. I'm sure you can make some friends at the camp. And who knows, maybe you'll have some adventures there too." Tony looked up just in time to see Jarvis wink mischievously before leaving the room. Tony stared after him before rolling his eyes and sitting up, leaning back against the headboard.

Adventure? Friends? At a fucking summer camp? Yeah right!

He got up from the bed and gathered up his small toolbox and his smaller projects, shoving them into a small duffle bag. If he had to be stuck at that fucking camp, might as well bring some things he could work on while trying to hide from the 'playful raccoons' and the 'amazing fun' that they promised.

* * *

"What do you mean you're _not_ coming with?" Steve had to fight really hard so he wouldn't yell into the phone, suddenly feeling nervous and scared. He and Bucky had more or less been goaded into going to camp together by their mothers and they had eventually caved, albeit under protest and had been prepared to find ways to tough through it together however they could. And now Bucky was calling and saying he wasn't going to go at all? What the hell!

Bucky groaned into the phone, somehow both apologetic and annoyed at the same time. "I'm sorry Stevie, but I can't. My flu has gotten way worse and I can't come with so mom cancelled the whole thing."

Steve plumped down on his bed, only barely avoiding sitting on the bag he was in the middle of packing. "Couldn't you just, I don't know, come to the camp when you get well? Like, wait a week or two and come then? It's just a flu, you'll get better soon, right?"

Bucky cleared his throat and Steve thought he could hear him blow his nose. "My mom already called and asked the camp directors. They said if you don't show up on the first day of the whole thing, you couldn't come at all. I don't know, some stupid policy or something. So she could only ask for a refund and that was that. Sorry pal, you'll have to go alone."

Steve groaned and fell back on his bed. The only reason he thought this camp would be bearable was because he would have Bucky with him, and now he wouldn't even have his best friend with him! How would he survive now?

"Sorry Buck, I hate to sound so self-pitying when you're the one who's sick and will be home alone for weeks. But it was the only good thing about this stupid camp thing was us being together for the summer. How will I survive without you there to keep me sane?"

Bucky snorted into the phone. "Knowing you you'll probably get kicked out in a less in a week after picking fights with assholes. You've never known when to back down and just let things be." Steve rolled his eyes and stared up at the ceiling.

Bucky wasn't wrong about any off it, he'd always hated bullies and never backed down from a fight or a challenge and it had ended in more fights than he could count or remember. And that had been before he'd hit his growth spurt and started to get his muscles after starting to play football.

So hey, maybe there was truth to that and he would get kicked out of there before too much time had passed? Or maybe he could try to convince his mom that he was sick too and really couldn’t got to the camp either and maybe she could ask for a refund too?

Yeah, like that was going to happen.

He sighed and pulled his fingers through his hair. "Well, get well soon Buck. I have to get back to packing." Bucky gave him a 'good luck' before hanging up and Steve sat back up again. He looked over at the bags on the floor; one stuffed with clothes and other necessities for the next two months and his duffle bag where he had stuffed a few books, his headphones, sketchbook and pens and other stuff. He was pretty much done but everything in him was screaming at him to try and run away from this whole crazy idea.

His mom knocked on the door and entered with a sad smile. "Hi honey. I just got a call from Bucky's mother-" Steve nodded and cut her off.

"I know, Bucky just called me. He said he won't come to camp with me." His mom's smile turned pitying and she came into the room and sat down beside him, stroking his hair.

"I'm sorry honey, but these things happen sometimes. I'm sure you'll find other friends at the camp-" Steve shook his head and looked down at the floor.

"I don't think so mom. I don't click with other people, not like Bucky does. He's really my only friend, you know that." His mom shook her head and smacked him lightly on the head.

"That's only because you don't try, Steve. You don't reach out and try to make friends, you just sit there with your sketchbooks when you don't play football, which is strange considering how nice and friendly you are."

Steve blushed and kept his eyes down on his feet. She was right, of course. He wasn't the most social kid in school, that had always been Bucky. He'd never been one to reach out too that many people in his life and was kinda content where he was. Sure, he had Sam and he kinda knew Thor who both played on the football team, and he kinda knew his girlfriend Jane since she always met them up after practice or a game to greet Thor.

But other than that he always hung out with Bucky. He wasn't shy, had never been a shy or quiet kid, but he just wasn't that interested in hanging out with anyone in the school. He'd always felt out of place in there, and most of the kids there had either teased him when he was small or just ignored him and why would he want to hang out with anyone there?

He sighed and looked up at his mother, trying his hardest to look like a kicked puppy. "Mom, please, I really don't want to go without Bucky." She laughed softly at him and kissed him on the forehead.

"It's just a summer camp, Steve. You'll survive." She got up from the bed and headed for the door. But before she walked out, she turned to look at him with a soft, reassuring smile. "You know Steve, I have a good feeling about this summer. I think this camp will be good for you. Call it a hunch, but I think you'll really like this summer."

Steve looked after her as she left the room and then back down at his bags and sighed heavily. Oh well, he was almost done now anyway so he might as well finish packing the stupid bags and prepare for being driven to that stupid camp in that stupid taxi that would come tomorrow. And sure, it might be a torturous summer but his mom was right about one thing.

It was just a summer camp. What was the worst thing that could really happen?

* * *

Natasha closed her bag with a frown on her face before turning to look at Clint, who was still packing his bag, very, very slowly. She rolled her eyes and sat down on her bed and started to remove nail polish from her fingernails. She had long since given up on trying to get him to get more organized only for it all to fall on deaf ears. Which was already half true since Clint did require hearing aids, but still. He could never seem to remember or take in her advice and sometimes she had just ended up doing most of the work while he got to lie back and do nothing, which she had long since stopped doing.

Clint groaned and threw down the last t-shirt and a pair of jeans into his bag and zipped it before moving on the next one, dumping a stack of comic books, his headphones and his beloved teddy Golden Retriever Lucky into it. Natasha had never once seen him sleep without Lucky since they were both adopted by Phil and he was not ashamed to admit that he loved that dog and needed it for comfort at nights. Not that Natasha was one to judge, since she still had nightmares about her past some nights and would find comfort in sleeping with her old ballerina shoes or with her jackknife close by.

Clint looked up from the bag and turned to her. "Do you think they'll have archery at that camp, Nat? It would be one thing that might make this whole stupid thing a bit better." She looked up from her nails for a split second before looking back at them.

"I highly doubt that, Clint. Archery isn't really a thing most kids are into, but you can always hope I guess." She brushed a strand of red hair out of her face without even blinking or looking away from her nails and moved on to the next hand.

Clint groaned again and shoved his spare hearing aids into bag. "Fucking hell, why did we agree to this Nat? I hate camps, you hate camps so why are we going at all?"

Her lip quirked slightly and she pulled up her legs on the bed so she could sit cross-legged. "Because Phil wants us to become more social and hang out with more people than just each other. We've been over this already."

Clint sighed and took Lucky out of the bag again, hugging him to his chest and stroking the fur. “And here I thought we’d have some freedom and get some time to whatever we wanted for the summer, but instead we get sent to the most dorky, stupid looking camp ever.” He rolled his eyes and smiled mockingly at her. “Lucky us.”

Natasha’s lip quirked slightly and she got up from the bed and sat down beside Clint, wrapping her arm around his shoulders. “Hey Clint, I know it’s not what any of us wanted, but at least no one there will know who we are, right? You might make some friends there who won’t constantly call you a circus freak or whatever.” He looked at her, his eyebrow raised and head tilted.

“And what about you? Are you just sit around and glare at everyone who dares looking at you? Or sip on ‘vodka’ all the time?” She rolled her eyes and smacked him on the head.

“Well, better than hanging around you and constantly having to save your butt all the time. I am not your bodyguard, Clint.” She got off the bed and started to go through her bags one final time. “Besides, anything is better than staying in the city for the whole summer.”

* * *

Thor went through his closet for good camp clothes as he heard Loki laugh at him from the bedroom door. “Well brother, it looks like you will have to spend your summer alone, far away from our parents and me. How tragic.”

Thor rolled his eyes and felt anger brew up again. Stupid Loki and his stupid mouth.

Of course Pierce had run off to tell the principal that he had threatened to injure him today, which he had called to tell his father about. And Odin of course had been furious at how Thor had threatened with violence and had yelled at him for so long about how it made the family look and how he needed to think before acting and control his anger and, bla bla bla. Thor had heard that talk many a time before.

Only it had taken a turn for the worst when he had been told that he would be sent off to a camp for the summer and he would be forced to leave the next day.

“Hopefully it will help improve your behavior for the next Fall.” His father had said before sending him up to his room to pack. His mother had tried to talk to him and calm him down a little, which had only worked a little. She had tried to tell him that it might be good for him to make some friends and get away from his father for a while.

But Loki was really, really enjoying the fact that Thor would be sent away for the whole summer, which meant he would be allowed to do whatever he wanted without him butting in the whole time.

“If you have nothing of value to say Loki, I suggest you leave me to my packing.” Loki smirked and plumped down on the bed, picking up one of Thor’s stuffed animals and played a little with it.

“I am merely saying that I feel pity for you. To spend the whole summer far away from here, in some stuffy forest alone with no friends or Internet or anything else that you might enjoy. Poor Thor, no friends and no fun things to do for two and a half months.”

Thor tried to take a few deep breaths to calm his anger. It would do him no good to loose his composure and hit Loki; it would only make his father even angrier. Maybe he would even be forced to leave his phone in the house, or maybe take away his money or something equally terrible.

He only grumbled and threw a pair of socks at him. “I know what you are attempting to do Loki, and it won’t work. I can’t say that I’m too happy with how all of this has transpired, but I am simply trying to make the best of it.” He grabbed a couple of jeans, a few t-shirts and a couple of hoodies before stuffing it all into his bag. “Also, I don’t seem to recall you having any better plans for the summer. What are you going to do with all your free time, exactly?”

Loki grinned and leaned back against the wall, still clutching the stuffed toy and making it wave its paw at him. “I am going to do what I have always wanted to do; spend some time far away for you and do whatever I feel like doing, without you here to drag me to play with sports or competitions or whatever you want to do. See, that is the beauty of it all. Since you have no friends and have forced me to whatever you want to do with you, and you will spend your summer away from me, I will finally be able to do whatever I want to.”

Thor gritted his teeth and snatched the animal out of Loki’s hands and putting it back on his bed. “I do not force you to-“ Then he stopped as he remembered that he had, in fact, dragged Loki away to a lot of activities that he had wanted to do. Many football games, concerts and activities in Central Park, but not so many things that Loki had wanted to do.

Still, he didn’t let himself get deterred and just glared at his brother. “If you have nothing more you wish to tell me, then I suggest you leave me alone and let me pack in peace.” Loki just smirked at him and jumped off the bed, making his way to the door. But before he left the room, he turned to look at Thor.

“Ah, don’t feel too bad about this situation, brother. I am sure you can find adventures on the camp too. Perhaps you will be able to catch a wild boar, or win the grand battles of Capture The Flag.” He laughed and then left, leaving Thor only barely holding his anger back and slamming the door shut behind him.

* * *

Bruce sighed as he zipped his bag closed. All packed and done. Now all he had to do was wait for the cab to come.

It had been a very big surprise when his father had told him, the second he had come home from school yesterday, that he would be sent to a summer camp instead of staying in the city, mostly because of how much money these things usually cost and they were not made of money. Especially after his mom had died and his father had been forced to pay for everything on his own. Bruce had tried to find part-time jobs to help pay the bills and save as much as he could for emergencies, but it was still not much.

But dad had been acting very strange when he had said this, almost like he was in a trance, so Bruce had just thought that he had been on the sauce and if that was the case, it was better to not question any of it and he had gone to his room to pack. Not there was much for him to pack, just some clothes, a few books and some other things, like his phone, headphones and a small bag of weed.

It helps mellow him out when he’s stressed out or getting too angry.

And now, the following day, he was just going through his back one last time to make sure he hadn’t forgotten or missed anything, before finally deciding he was done and going down the stairs and into the kitchen, where his dad was sitting with a bottle of beer and looking down at a newspaper.

“Dad, I’m done now.” He looked up from the paper and looked at Bruce with tired, drunk eyes. Bruce rolled his eyes and bit his lip so he wouldn’t say anything, he just sighed. _‘Not even 9AM and he’s already drunk. That has to be a record.’_

Dad jerked his thumb towards the door. “Cab’ll be here ‘n a few min’uts. J’st go ‘n wait outs’de.” Bruce nodded and gave him a quick hug before going out.

_‘I’ll miss you too, dad.’_

When he got outside the house, he barely had to wait ten minutes before the taxi showed up and pulled up beside him. It was a fairly big taxi, but it was packed full of people already. There was a woman in the driver seat with short, black hair and dressed in a taxi uniform and her steel blue eyes were locked on the road ahead of them. And when Bruce looked to see who else was in the cab, he almost dropped his bag in shock.

Next to the driver was another girl, a girl with long red hair tied into a ponytail, green eyes and dressed in a tight dark red shirt and black pants. He knew her, it was Natasha Romanov. Everyone in school knew her despite very few people talking to her aside from her brother Clint Barton.

Speaking of Clint, he was sitting behind her, his sandy blonde hair a tousled mess and dressed in a purple t-shirt and loose, dark blue jeans. And beside him was a big and buff guy, shoulder long blonde hair and dressed in a t-shirt, red hoodie. In the backseat was another big and blonde guy, dressed in a flannel shirt, brown leather jacket and khaki pants, looking really uncomfortable and had his arms folded over his chest. And next to him was Tony Stark, who Bruce definitely recognized. He was dressed in tight jeans, a red, yellow and black jacket and a black tank top. He had also styled his hair like he always did and had a pair of sunglasses over his face.

So they were all going to the camp together? Hm, it didn’t seem like something people like Tony, Natasha or Clint might like, and he didn’t know about the others but they didn’t look like they were jumping at the chance to be here either.

_‘I guess we have that much in common.’_

The driver honked her horn, glaring at him through the window. “Hey, you comin’ with or what?” Bruce started to nod and dumped his bag in the trunk, opened the door to the backseat and squeezed in between Tony and the other blonde guy, who seemed to look revealed to have Bruce between him and Tony.

_‘It had to be in the back between two other guys, didn’t it? God, I hate tight spaces.’_

The woman started to drive again and they made their way out of the city and eventually made their way onto a thin road, driving further and further into a forest. There was complete silence in the car, aside from some low rock music from the radio.

Bruce looked around at the other kids in the car. Natasha had earbuds and seemed to listen to music from her phone, slightly moving her head in time to the music. Clint was playing on some kind of game console and the blonde guy next to him was looking out the window, admiring the scenery. The blonde next to him had taken out a sketchbook and had started to draw something, and Tony was playing around on his phone. Bruce was starting to regret throwing his bag into the trunk and that he hadn’t taken out his phone and headphones, but before he could do or say anything, Clint looked up from his game and looked between them all before putting his game down.

“Okay, so I’m not the only one who clearly doesn’t want to be here, eh?” Everyone looked up from what they’re doing, aside from Natasha who probably didn’t hear him, and looked at Clint, who just smirked lightly and rested his arm on top of the seat. “Oh come on, it’s clear no one here is jumping at the idea of going to camp. So who else has been forced to go to camp against their will?”

Tony snorted and put his phone down. “You mean I’m not the only one who had this whole thing dumped into my lap the second I got home from school? Well, at least it’s a comfort I won’t be the only one who’ll suffer.”

Clint smirked and leaned over the gap between them to hear Tony better. “Oh yeah, I sure didn’t beg my dad to go this this lame camp.” He stretched out his hand for Tony to take. “Clint Barton by the way. We go to the same school.” Tony smiled and took his hand, shaking it.

“Tony Stark, and yeah I know, I think I’ve seen you around there before. You hang out a lot with Natasha, don’t you?” Clint nodded and looked over his shoulder at her.

“Yeah. We have the same dad and we’ve lived together since we were kids. She’s had my back since as forever.” He looked over at Bruce and smiled. “And you are?” Bruce smiled, a bit awkwardly and reached out his hand.

“Bruce Banner. I think we have history together.” Clint nodded and shook his hand enthusiastically.

“Oh yeah, I thought you looked a bit familiar dude. Are you also here against your will?” Bruce shrugged and tried to smile.

“Well… I mean, I certainly didn’t ask to go here, but my dad probably just wanted me to go and have some friends aside from school or whatever. And we don’t have a lot of money so I didn’t really have the heart to say no, so… here I am.” Tony snorted and shook his head at him.

“Well, next time they want to do something for you or whatever maybe you should tell them what you want instead of just forcing you to do whatever they think you want to do.” The blonde next to them both half-glared at Tony and rolled his eyes with disgust.

“Well, maybe it was just meant to be a nice gesture from a parent, Stark? Not that you would know anything about ‘nice’, right?” Tony snapped his head at the guy, first surprised and then angry.

“Oh fuck off, Rogers, no one asked for your opinion.” Rogers? Rogers… Bruce had heard that before, but was the full name… oh yeah, Steve Rogers! They had math together, but he was probably a bigger introvert than Bruce because he was sure the guy never actually spoke or hung out with anyone. At least not that Bruce knew.

But Clint just smirked at him tilting his head at Steve. “Oh, so you wanted to go here? Tell me, what made you jump at the chance to go to Camp Delight for the summer?” Steve flushed a bright red and looked down at his sketchbook.

“Well… I mean, I didn’t _want_ to really, my mother really wanted me to get to know some new friends. But I was going to go with my best friend so I thought it’d be somewhat bearable. But then he called me yesterday and told me that he had caught the flu and couldn’t come, so I had to go alone.”

Tony smirked teasingly at him. “Oh, so you mean you _didn’t_ actually want to go here, either? What was that about it being a ‘nice gesture from a nice parent?’” Steve glared at him but quickly went back to his sketchbook without saying anything else.

The other blonde guy in front of Tony turned around to look at them and smiled sadly. “Well, I can only envy you. My father has sent me to this camp as punishment for my behavior in school and believes it might help my temper. But I hardly had a choice in the matter.” Bruce narrowed his eyes slightly at how he spoke, but then remembered that a guy from Norway had started going to their school some time ago so this was probably him.

Clint grinned widely at him. “Oh hey, you’re that guy from Norway, right? Um, Thor, right? Sorry, Natasha is better at names than me.” But Thor just smiled and slapped Clint on the shoulder so hard he almost fell onto the floor.

“Ay, that is correct. Thor Odinson is my name. My father moved here for work and I started going to your fair school about a year ago.” Steve looked up from his sketchbook again, this time a bit more interested.

“Really? What does he do?” Thor looked over at him, seemingly a bit surprised that he spoke again, and then smiled again.

“He is into weapons manufacturing. He then he figured that business would be better here in the United States and we moved here. We have lived here for almost a year now.” Tony sat up straighter and smirked at Thor.

“Oh, so your dad is the CEO for Odinson’s Solutions? My dad has talked about that before, he says they’re one of the few big companies that pose any threat to Stark Industries.” Thor smirked back at him and nodded, but before he could say anything, a loud BANG was heard and the driver cursed as she slowed down and pulled over by the road.

She got out of the car, popped the hood on car and started to look over the engine. Natasha finally removed her earbuds and turned to look over at the others. “Well, looks like we’ll be stopping for a while. That sounded pretty bad.” Tony smirked and also got out of the car.

“I’m sure I can fix it. I’m really good with engines, it shouldn’t take too long.” Steve rolled his eyes but he also started to get of the car.

“I need to stretch my legs a little anyway.” He muttered, putting his stuff back in the bag and got out, and Bruce was quick to follow. The tight space was really starting to get to him and he needed to breathe. He sat down by a tree and leaned his head back, breathing slowly and deeply and closed his eyes.

He heard the others also getting out of the car, chatting amongst themselves and he heard Tony talk a little with the lady about the car, though she did not sound the least bit grateful for his ‘help’. Though in her defense he did sound a bit like a know-it-all, and very few adults that Bruce had met actually liked being shown up by a kid.

“You okay?” Bruce looked up and saw Natasha stand beside him, hand on her hip and head slightly tilted, her mouth very slightly quirked. He smiled weakly and sat up a bit straighter.

“Uh, yeah, I’m okay. I just… I don’t really like tight spaces is all, I needed to breathe a little.”

“So you’re claustrophobic?” He nodded weakly and she brushed a string of hair out of her face and behind her ear. “You look pretty pale, you should drink something.” She handed him a bottle of some clear liquid and he instinctively jerked back a little.

She rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed but pushed the bottle towards them. “Relax, it’s just water. I always bring water with me just in case. And you look like you need something to drink right now.” Bruce immediately felt a bit embarrassed for his reaction, but there were a lot of rumors floating around about Natasha and that bottle she always carried around.

Still, he smiled gratefully at her and took the bottle from her, taking a few deep sips of cool and clear water. And it did help a lot to clear his head a little and also cool him down a little. He handed it back to her with a soft smile. “Thank you, Natasha.” Her frown turned into a very small smile and she patted his shoulder before he went over to Clint and started to talk to him.

Steve was walking around the car in circles before he started to walk over to the side of the car, leaned back against it and sighed, either out of frustration or tiredness, and tilted his head towards the sun. Thor and Clint had started to throw rocks at certain targets, Thor getting both very impressed and annoyed that Clint kept beating him and Natasha was fiddling with her phone, before placing it to her ear, held it there for a few seconds before groaning and putting it down again.

“There’s no signal here, guys. I can’t call for another taxi or a tow truck.” Tony looked up from where he was working with the engine and smirked at her.

“Well, maybe you phone just has a bad reception.” He wiped his hands on his pants before taking out his own phone with a confident smirk. “My phone is the best of the best and has found reception everywhere.” Natasha glared at him and Steve looked at with annoyed eyes before rolling his eyes at him.

But Tony either didn’t notice or care because he just dialed a number and then put it to his ear only to look really surprised when he apparently didn’t get any response and looked down at his phone. “What? But it’s never…”

Steve smirked from where he was standing, arms folded and leaning against the car. “Your daddy’s tech not good enough anymore?” Tony glared at him and tried again a few times before giving up and turning back to the engine.

“There is nothing wrong with _my_ tech, Rogers, but this has got to be sabotage here. This engine doesn’t look like it malfunctioned, it looks like it’s been tampered with.” The driver rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest.

“Oh really, do tell Mr. Whiz Kid, how do you figure that?” Tony grimaced at the engine seemed to jerk something loose.

“Well, I’m fairly certain this isn’t supposed to be here.” He held something in his hands that looked like the remains from a few taped together firecrackers in a small, plastic container. “Looks like someone was trying to be funny.” She grabbed the container and looked it over, before swearing and throwing to the ground.

“Ugh, okay, so here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna go back the way we came and see if I get any signal and if I can call for help. In the meantime you kids stay here and wait for me to come back.” Clint narrowed his eyes at her and walked away from what he and Thor had been doing.

“What, you’re gonna ditch us here? Without any means of getting back or calling for help?” Steve got from where he had been leaning against the car and walked a few steps towards her too.

“Yeah, what if something happens? You’re the adult!” She rolled her eyes and started to walk down the road the way they came from.

“It won’t take so long, just stay where you are and I’ll be back soon.” And with that she disappeared down the road and they looked after her, until she disappeared out of view. Tony closed the hood and walked over to the others, sitting down close by Thor and Clint’s throwing game.

“Well, I guess we’d better get comfortable here, we could be here for a while.” Thor looked at him, confused and head tilted to the side.

“How so, friend Tony? She said she would merely be gone for a short while.” Tony shook his head and smirked tiredly at him.

“Nah buddy, I don’t think so. First of all, we’re miles away from the city, which means she’d have to go quite a while to actually get any reception. Second, I could see she didn’t want to deal with this situation at all, or us. I’ll bet you ten bucks that she just wanted to get away from us for a while. She’ll probably not be back for a while.”

Steve glared at him, arms still folded over his chest and his eyebrows were furrowed. “Oh come on, Stark, she was just going to look for phone service, it can’t take too long. I give her an hour or so, an hour and a half at most.” Tony just shook his head and leaned back against a tree.

“Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that Rogers. But I’m telling you that she’s not gonna be back for a long, long while.”

And Tony turned out to be right, because after an hour and half she had still not come back and they were still waiting. Tony had taken Thor’s place and was now playing an impromptu game of darts, with small rocks and a few branches instead of actual darts or circles on a round board. Steve had started sketch again, sitting leaned back against a tree with a pair of headphones over his ears. Natasha was looking through a book and Thor was doing pull-ups on a thick and sturdy branch.

Bruce was sitting with a book of his own, but he had taken to watch Tony and Clint throw their little rock-dart game, and while Clint was still better at hitting bulls-eye than Tony, Tony was still pretty good and did hit a few every once in a while too, until he eventually decided he’d had enough and sat down close to Bruce while Clint was rubbing his obvious victory in his face.

Bruce looked over at Tony and eyed him carefully. While Tony did sometimes get lumped together with the nerds, he didn’t really look it. Sure, he had those glasses that didn’t look the best and he always had at least a few zits on his face, plus being very skinny and short. But he had really good clothes, well-styled hair and managed to look good, if a little awkward in certain clothes sometimes, like he didn’t fill them properly. But he was clearly going to be a really good-looking guy once puberty had settled a little and he always did much better in gym class than Bruce ever did, so he at least had that going for him.

Tony looked up at him and smirked a little at him. “Hey.” Bruce flushed a little at having been caught staring at him, but tried to smile like he hadn’t.

“Hi.” Silence. Bruce wracked his brain for something to say so Tony wouldn’t think he was an idiot. He came up blank, but then Tony smiled a bit more genuinely at him.

“I... uh, I never got the chance to ask if you were okay from yesterday.” Bruce immediately remembered what Tony was referring to and nodded with a grateful smile.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine- I-I mean I was fine. A-and I never got to thank you for helping me with those jerks. They’re always on my back for something or other, so thanks for, you know, helping me out.” Tony smiled and bumped him with his shoulder.

“Don’t mention it. I might be an asshole but I don’t like bullies anymore than anyone else do.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a protein bar with nuts and berries, breaking it in two and handing one of them to Bruce. “Want some? I get the feeling we’re not gonna have lunch anytime soon.” Bruce took it with a grateful thank you and quickly finished it.

And once again, Tony turned out to be right, because several hours passed and the driver still didn’t show up or come back and it eventually got dark and moon and stars appeared on the sky. The kids got their phones out and used it as flashlights to try and see if anyone came. But of course, no one did.

“What the hell kind of road is this? There hasn’t been a car driving past here in five hours.” Natasha groaned and leaned back against the car, now having put on a sweatshirt as the temperature dropped and it got colder and colder.

Steve looked at his phone and sighed. “And our driver has been missing for almost five and a half hours now too. Something is very wrong about all of this.” Tony, who’d taken another crack at fixing the engine, rolled his eyes and stared him incredulously from the hood of the car.

“I told you, she’s ditched us. She’s left and didn’t come back to get us, because she got sick of us or whatever.” Steve narrowed his eyes at Tony and opened his mouth, but Thor cut him off.

“Perhaps she has gotten herself lost in these woods? Or she has gotten into trouble with animals? She may not have, as you phrase it, ditched us on purpose.” Tony didn’t respond to that, he just rolled his eyes again and wiped off his hands on his pants before looking through his bag.

“Well, I’m out of protein bars. I don’t suppose anyone else had the idea of bringing along snacks for the trip, ‘cause I don’t think we’ll get dinner either.” No one did have anything else to eat and Clint shivered, rubbing his hands over his arms.

“Well, what are we supposed to do then? We still have no service, no food and no way of calling for help. Do you think the camp people will call the cops if we don’t show up?” Bruce shrugged and rubbed his hands together and blew hot air on them in an attempt to warm them up.

“Maybe, but it’s not like they would know where we are, right? We can only hope someone realizes six kids are missing with no explanation as to why they didn’t show up to camp on the first day.”

Tony rolled his eyes again and swore as he tried to fix the engine while also holding up his phone for light. “Well, either way this damn hunk of junk isn’t going to be much help for us. From what I can see it would need tools to fix it that this driver thought to bring along for the trip.” He swore again and kicked at it before slamming to hood back down as hard as he could.

Then, before anyone could say anything else, a bright blue light shone from somewhere out in the woods and a low, electric sound and another hissing sound was heard as smoke poured out from the woods.

Everyone jumped and immediately stopped what they were doing and stared at it, as the light and the sound got closer and louder. “What’s that?” Clint asked as they all stared and he, Tony, Steve and Thor walked closer to spot what it was. But Natasha called them back.

“No, guys get back here! We don’t know what that is; we’d better stay here. Let’s get back in the car!” Tony turned to look at her over his shoulder, raised eyebrow and looking a bit defiant.

“Why?” She rolled her eyes, grabbed his sleeve and yanked him back.

“Because I say so, now come on!” Then, suddenly, an loud humming started to accompany the light and hissing and it all got closer and closer and louder and louder. The kids shared a look between themselves before hurrying back into the car, slamming the doors behind them, but still keeping a watchful eye on what was going on outside. Steve looked out his window and bit his lip.

“Maybe it’s just some military training exercise or something? We should be safe here.” Bruce shook his head; his breathing getting quicker and already feeling the stress, panic and claustrophobia make him a mess of nerves and fear.

“No, I can’t stand these tight spaces! I think we’d be much safer outside!” As he spoke he found himself having yell, as the sound had gotten incredibly loud and they all had to speak louder in order to be heard over it. Natasha looked over at him, her face strained and her voice almost a yell now.

“Look, whatever is going on out there, I don’t think it’s smart to be out there while it’s happening! It’s probably smarter to stay in here until it’s over!” Clint just smirked over at her, even if it was very strained now with worry and fear.

“Yeah, let’s listen to Ms. Bossy-Pants over there!” She glared over at him and Bruce could see that she really wanted to smack him but either restrained herself enough or was to distracted by what was going on around them to actually do it. But Steve bumped his knees against the seat in front of him to get his attention.

“Hey, whatever that is could be dangerous for all we know! No need to be nasty about it!” Thor grimaced as the sound got louder and stared out the window on Clint’s side of the car.

“What transpires here? What could possibly be making this noise?” Tony grimaced too and gritted his teeth as it got even louder.

“Do you think-“ He winced as a loud high-pitched sound started to ring. He raised his voice to a scream, “Do you think it’s some kind of weapon’s demonstration?” Steve turned to him and glared at him, now pressing his fingers over his ears.

“What kind of weapons would be tested out in the woods this close to a road where cars drive?!” Tony glared at him and Bruce snapped out his own panic and stress and screamed loudly into his face, both to be heard and also to be stop the fighting.

“Well fine then, _you_ tell us what the _hell_ is going on here!” Then the sound got so loud that they all needed to cover their ears and the light got so extremely bright that they all to duck down and close their eyes as it covered the whole car and then… blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, and so the plot starts to get going! And in the next chapter we’ll learn where our heroes end up and what’s gonna happen next. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave kudos, bookmark and leave your thoughts in the comments. I would also really appreciate it if you subscribed too! Thank you for reading!


	3. Summer Camp or Space Adventures?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids find themselves on a strange spaceship, flying just above Planet Earth and meet the mysterious Watcher. He offers them a choice, to go on a mission through the galaxy or get sent back to summer camp. What will they choose?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it’s finally done! I wasn’t sure how long I wanted to keep this chapter or if I should cut it in half, but I really want to get to the good stuff so I figure we get all of this out of the way as quick as possible. 
> 
> Also, there are references for how my machines look at the bottom, just in case you’re confused by my terrible descriptions. 
> 
> I hope you’ll like it!

When Natasha opened her eyes again she didn't see the forest anymore. Or the road they had been standing on before. In fact, nothing she saw was close to where they been before. She carefully got her fingers out of her ears and started to move around to see how it looked.

The car seemed to stand in some kind of room, not very big or tall, and made out of some kind of metal. It looked almost like a big box of something. She turned to look at the others and gently shook Clint, who was sitting with his fingers in his ears and eyes shut tight, to snap him out of it while looking around at the others.

"Hey guys, are you okay?" The others started to move and look up from where they were sitting with their heads ducked down, hands over their ears and eyes closed.

"What trickery is this?" Thor jerked up from where he sat and gaped around in the room, which made Clint jump a little and he also looked around, both shocked and a little scared.

"Where the hell are we?" Clint eyed the little box they were trapped in. Tony shrugged and placed a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, who had started to look a bit pale. Steve looked out his window and tried to examine the room from his seat.

"It looks a little like a box, but maybe someone stole the car and we've gotten stolen with it or something?" Tony looked up from comforting Bruce and over at the others.

"Maybe we've been drugged and kidnapped? Maybe they're looking for ransom for something?" Natasha rolled her eyes from her seat.

"I don't think that's very likely. If we were kidnapped, why would they leave us in the car, let a lone steal an old New York Taxi car to begin with? Besides, aside from you none of us come from particularly wealthy families." Bruce took a shaky breath and looked up at the others, very pale and breathing heavily.

"Um, not that this isn't a very valid conversation to have at the moment, but could we _please_ have it outside this sardine can, please?" Tony and Steve immediately started to move out of the car to allow Bruce to get out and the others weren't slow to follow. But the little box they were trapped in wasn’t much better. It was barely big enough to be qualified as a garage and it was only barely big enough to fit them all.

Natasha started to look over the walls, running her fingers over the smooth, cool metal to try and find anything that could tell them how to get out of there, and the others weren’t slow to follow suit and try find a button or hatch or a door that could get them out of there. But before anyone found anything, one end of the box opened itself like a slide door, making all of them jump back and stare at the opening.

The kids stared at the opened door, then each other and then Tony started to walk out of the room, only for Steve to grab his arm and yank him back. “Are you crazy? We have no idea where we are or who brought us here and you’re just gonna waltz out there?” Tony rolled his eyes and yanked his arm back.

“Well, what exactly are we supposed to do then, Rogers? Just stand around here and wait for someone to hopefully come and maybe tell us what’s going on?” He snorted. “No way. You do that if you want, but I wanna see where the hell we are. Hopefully we can find a way out of here.” And so he walked out, followed by Clint and Thor and eventually the others also started to slowly get out of the small little box, the doors slowly closing behind them. But the kids’ barley noticed that as they took in the room they had walked into.

They had walked into a big room, almost entirely made of white and light grey metal and a few strange contraptions were scattered across the room. In one corner was a machine that looked like a cross between a computer and a super advanced hairdryer, with a seat formed under a big bowl-like apparatus, which was connected to the big machine and had a keypad and a display on its side. In another corner was a device that looked like a cross between a dining table from a diner- one of those round ones with a bench that went around the whole table and were connected to each other- and a big round dome that covered the whole table. There a door close behind the hair dryer machine, and two doors on each side of the room, each with a small display on the right side, but they were at the moment closed and maybe even locked if the red symbol of a closed lock on the displays were any indication.

But most of the room was empty, aside from one end that was taken up by a giant closed window and a big control panel, along with six chairs in front of it. There were actually a couple of windows here and there in the room, but they were all covered so when Natasha tried to look outside and to see where they were, she couldn’t see anything aside from metal.

All of them stared at the room for several minutes without saying a word. But eventually Clint licked his lips and took a step forward. “Where… where and what is this?”

Bruce took a deep, shuddering breath, still looking very pale. “It looks like some sort of control room. Maybe we’re in some kind of… nuclear power plant or something?” Tony shrugged but also looked a bit more curious than the others.

“I don’t know, but I’ve never seen anything like this before, it’s probably some kind of secret lab or something. I still say we’ve been kidnapped, the guys might come here and cut off a finger or ear to send to our parents.” Steve rolled his eyes and looked at him, mostly annoyed but Natasha could see if he wasn’t quite as convinced as he probably wanted to be.

“Cut off a finger, seriously? This isn’t a hostage movie, Stark, can you please just _act_ like you’re taking this seriously?” Tony glared back at him, putting his hands on his hips.

“Have _you_ ever been kidnapped?” Steve lost the glare, now looking more confused as he shook his head. Tony nodded and looked away from him. “Okay then.” Then he started to walk further into the room and looked over the walls and doors, fingering on the displays and buttons that were scattered across the room.

Steve jerked forward and barked, “Hey! Don’t touch anything if you don’t know what it is!” Tony rolled his eyes but didn’t look away.

“I’m just trying to find a way out of here!” He moved onto looking over the big hairdryer, running his fingers over the cool metal and looking over the display and buttons on the sides. When he didn’t seem to find anything of too much interest or that could tell him where they were, he moved on the doors. The one behind the hair dryer was locked and no matter how much Tony yanked on the door handle or fiddled with the lock, it remained immovable, so he eventually moved on to the other doors.

Clint and Natasha also started to look around the room, though Natasha seemed to follow Clint around just so he wouldn’t touch anything rather than try to find a way out. Thor ran up to join Tony by one of the doors, but Bruce stumbled over to the hairdryer machine and sat down on the seat, leaning his head back against the metal and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths and tried to calm himself. While this room wasn’t as bad as the metal box or the car had been, the fact that the windows were covered and the doors were closed, made it all feel like they were still in a box.

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Hey, are you sick?” He cracked one eye open and saw Steve stand over him, looking very concerned. He tried to smile, but it looked a bit more like a grimace and took another deep breath.

“No, no I’m fine, thanks. I’m just a little dizzy. This room feels really confined and I don’t really like that too much. It was bad enough inside that car or the box we were in before.” He tried to sound normal, but was voice was rather weak and it cracked a little and Steve’s eyes widened slightly before kneeling down beside him with a soft smile.

“Oh, well, you know, my mom is a nurse and she told me that you could always lean your head back like this,” He gently placed a hand under Bruce’s chin and lifted it slightly, so his chin was tilted up and his nose was pointed up in the air. “And that it, you know, releases the airways and it might help you with your breathing a little.” Bruce smiled in thanks, closed his eyes again and kept breathing deeply.

Steve smiled too before getting back up on his feet and looked over at what the others were doing. Clint and Natasha were looking over the doors on the left and Thor and Tony looked over the doors on the right. But none of them seemed to have had any luck in trying to open them.

He walked over to Natasha and Clint- anything to be as far away from Stark as possible- and looked over the display. “Any luck opening the doors?” Clint shook his head and seemed to gotten bored with trying to open it, whereas Natasha was still trying to make sense of it.

“No, it’s no good. It looks like whoever brought us here didn’t want us to go exploring in any other rooms.”

“I’m telling you!” Tony called to them from one the doors without looking away from it. “Kidnapped.” Steve rolled his eyes and had to bite his to prevent himself from saying something stupid.

_‘Seriously, did that guy ever shut up?’_

Thor looked over at Bruce, who was still sitting by the hairdryer and looked over at Steve, coming up to him so they could speak to themselves. “Is he well? He looks ill.” Steve glanced over at Bruce, who thankfully didn’t look as pale anymore and had regained some color in his face.

“He’s just a little nauseous, I think. He’ll be okay.” Thor nodded and then started to look over the big control panel. It was covered with buttons, displays, levers and all kinds of blinking lights and big screen by the center chairs, almost like one from a small computer.

“Hm, perhaps it is here we can locate the means to leave this room?” He mumbled to himself and sat down in one of the chairs, scanning over the buttons and levers, but Natasha smacked his hand before he could press anything.

“Hey, don’t touch anything!” She hissed. “We don’t actually know what any of this is, for all we know we could set off a bomb by pressing the wrong buttons.” Thor grumbled, but Tony came up beside him and also started to look over everything.

“Yeah but we have to try something, right? Or else we might be trapped here for who knows how long.” He moved to sit down in one of the middle chairs. “Let’s just have a look-“ But just as he sat down, and before he could touch or look at anything, the lights went off and everything started to beep and blink as an electric buzzing went off. Tony flew up from his chair, only a second after Thor and everyone quickly moved away from the panel as everything seemed to boot up.

“What did you do?!” Bruce came running up to him and Tony raised his hands defensively while shaking his head furiously.

“I didn’t touch anything, I just sat down!” But before anyone could start asking more questions, the covers over the big window started to move and opened up, revealing-

The kids stared out the window, eyes wide open and jaws almost hitting the floor as they took in what they were seeing, because outside the window, spinning in its orbit slowly and painstakingly real, was planet Earth. In fact, they were seeing the continent of North America right outside the window, as well as the big blue from the planet’s oceans and white clouds.

Everyone was silent for what felt like forever, just staring out the window at the slowly spinning planet. It was Natasha who eventually found her voice, but it was uncharacteristically weak and soft for her. “Are you guys seeing what I’m seeing?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it sounded about as loud as a yell in the silence of the room.

Steve swallowed loudly and only managed to squeak out a, “Oh my god…” and Tony shrugged while trying to sound as cocky and cool as always but sounded just as blown away as the rest of them.

“Well, it sure ain’t Camp Delight, that’s for sure.” Clint laughed weakly at the comment, but suddenly looked a little pale.

“What is this, some kind of movie set?” Natasha laughed, the laugh equally as breathless and weak as her brother’s and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“If it is, it’s the most convincing green screen or CGI effects I have ever seen. Pictures from satellites don’t look this convincing.” Thor leaned against one of the chairs’ backrests and stared out the window.

“What does this mean? Have we been transported to some sort of space center?” Tony snorted and shrugged his shoulders, never looking away from the window.

Bruce swallowed loudly and walked closer to the window, placing his hand on the glass and his eyes locked on the green and blue planet on the outside. He stared at it for what felt like an eternity before turning back to the others with big, wide eyes and his face suddenly very pale.

“Where… Where are we, really?” But before any of them could give any sort of answer, another voice joined them.

_“Travellers from Planet Earth.”_ Everybody jerked away from the window and started to look around, trying to spot the speaker. It was a deep voice, powerful, strong and commanding and unmistakably masculine, yet at the same time there was a strange undertone in the voice. Like it wasn’t entirely human. Also, the voice seemed to come from a speaker as opposed to from somewhere in the room from an actual person.

When no one seemed to spot anyone else in the room, or where the voice came from, it spoke again. _“Here I am.”_ And a light blinked to the right of the control panel and on a small podium of sorts a small screen had appeared and a strange display of colors and different shapes was floating across the screen.

The kids slowly made their way towards the podium, all a bit warily, and took their spots around it. “What is that?” Clint asked, nudging Tony in the side, who just shrugged while never looking away from the screen. Natasha elbowed him in the side with a glare and shushed him before looking back at the screen, just as the voice started talking again.

_“Travellers from Planet Earth. Welcome aboard my ship. It is a pleasure to have you all here. You are currently, as you may have already guessed, in outer space. To be exact, two hundred and twenty three thousand miles above the equator and Planet Earth.”_ Bruce felt his mouth fall open and Steve and Thor’s eyes widened as they took in the information. Natasha, while still appearing to be very stoic and unfazed, also had her mouth slightly open and her green eyes were glued to the screen. Tony and Clint didn’t entirely convinced, though they didn’t look away either and were listening just as intently as the rest of them, but did side-eye each other every now and then.

_“Now, I hope you can excuse to the means it took to get you all here. If we could have I would have preferred to get you all aboard my ship as soon as possible, so you wouldn’t have had to stay out in those woods for as long as you did. But unfortunately it had to happen at night, as to not draw too much attention to ourselves, and well, sometimes you have to do things the hard way in order to do it right. And I am equally sorry that I cannot greet you in person. This is a pre-recorded message and will only be shown once, so it’s best to listen closely.”_

“What is this, Candid Camera?” Tony whispered to Clint, who snorted a little but the others quickly and harshly shushed at them and Natasha smacked Tony on the head, quite hard too. Tony yelped in pain and rubbed his head while throwing a dirty glare at her.

_“Now, for your first question, who am I? Well, I can only reveal that I am not from Earth. And my appearance is, unfortunately, forbidden for me to reveal to you. But I believe this,”_ A somewhat human form appeared on the screen, with two legs, two arms and a small head, only it also had big wings that looked like big butterfly wings. And it also had a strange glow around it. _“is a suitable form for me to take as a appear to you, and you may call me Watcher.”_

“Seriously, what is this? Some kind of elaborate prank?” Clint shook his head and rolled his eyes, only to shushed again and he raised his hands defensively and took a big step to the left to avoid Natasha hitting him. Everyone else had their eyes glued to the screen, even Tony was listening very closely now.

_“Second, why are you here?”_

“To be on Candid Camera.” Tony said mockingly at the screen, only to be shushed harshly again and this time Bruce smacked him hard on the arm. He recoiled from both the surprising strength from the small, lanky guy and surprise from the sudden hit, rubbing his arm.

_“You are here, because you have been chosen for a very important and very secret mission. And if you accept my offer, I will teach you to pilot this ship to worlds that no one on Earth has ever seen or even dreamed of.” _

Everyone turned to look at each other. Was he serious? Being in space above Earth was one thing, if it was even true, but to pilot a space ship? Visit other worlds? Maybe even see aliens and who knows what else? He couldn’t actually be serious?

_“I am giving you the chance to see the Universe. But I cannot force you. I will give you on hour to decide what you wish to do, and then you will vote between going to summer camp or have a space adventure. But before I leave you, I will first ask of you all to not push any buttons or do anything before you are given the proper training and knowledge to know what it all does.”_

“Yeah, thanks for the tip.” Clint rolled his eyes again, only this time no one shushed him or tried to smack him.

_“Also, I understand that you have promised to remain in contact with your families and friends on Earth. And you will be able to do that from here, with these,”_ A small hatch opened itself on the podium, revealing six small devices, about an inch long and looking like small USB devices. _“Connect these to your phones and you will be able to call your families and friends.”_ Tony picked up one of the small devices and looked it over carefully, very intrigued and very curious, Bruce leaning over Clint’s shoulder to get a good look at it as well before picking one of his own.

_“That is all I will tell you for now. I will give you an hour to decide what each of you wants before you vote. If you vote yes, you will have adventures through Space and the galaxy. If you vote no, I will put you back on Earth and erase your memories. The choice is yours. I will see you all in one hour. Good luck.”_

The screen flickered before it disappeared and lights came on again. Everyone was silent for a long time, staring at the spot where the screen had just been and trying to make sense of it all. Space, aliens, missions, adventures, voting, it was all very much to take in so suddenly.

It was Clint who eventually broke the silence.

“’Kay. So that happened.” Steve snorted and shook his head with a smile that was both slightly exasperated and blown away at the same time.

“Well, I can safely say that this is not what I was expecting when my mom signed me up for summer camp.” Bruce breathed heavily and looked up at the others, his face gravely serious.

“So… we’re actually in space? Like, actually for real, we’re in outer fucking space?” Up till this moment no one had heard Bruce swear, which somehow made the situation feel more real. As if everything wasn’t just a practical joke from some TV Show or something.

Tony shrugged and tried to look cool, but as his brain more and more realized that they were in space and what they were being offered, he grew more and more giddy with every second. But he couldn’t show that to the others so he fought hard to keep those feelings and thoughts back. “Looks like it. But I was still right.”

Everyone turned to look at him, either exasperated or confused and he shrugged again with a grin. “We were taken against our will by someone who wants us for something. Sounds like a kidnapping to me.” Natasha glared at him, much like how a cat could glare at a person and Steve rolled his eyes and almost groaned, feeling very irate at Tony and his annoying mouth. But before he could tell him to stuff it Thor cut him off.

“So… what will we do now? Shall we try to discuss what our next course of action should be? How we shall vote?” Clint stared at him with wide eyes, as if the idea of what they should do was really freaking obvious.

“What we should do?! I’ll tell what we should do, we should vote yes!” Now everyone stared at him and Natasha raised her eyebrow at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

“What ever happened to ‘is this some kind of elaborate prank?’” Clint shrugged with a wide grin and gestured wildly with his hands.

“Natasha, we’re in space! That much has been made obvious here. And we’re being offered a chance to spend our summer vacation in space, maybe fighting aliens or saving the galaxy! And you’d rather pick a summer camp over that?”

She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say that. But I am saying that, if we are in space and we choose to stay here, we can’t go back. This won’t be like going to camp, faking illness after a few weeks and being sent home. Besides, we don’t know exactly what we’re getting into here. For all we know we could be asked to join a war of life and death or maybe it’s a trick where we’ll be eaten by a monster if we choose to stay.”

Tony rolled his eyes at her and almost placed his hand on her shoulder before he realized what he was doing and retracted it. “Who cares? It’s still an adventure through fucking space! So what if we face aliens and monsters or whatever, I’ll gladly take it over grilling hotdogs over the campfire in the woods covered in insect repellant or being forced to swim in some cold lake, because it’s awesome!”

Clint grinned and they high-fived each other. “I knew there was a reason I liked you Stark. You’ve got guts.” Tony smirked at him. Thor also grinned widely at them.

“I must agree with you. It does sound much more interesting to go on an adventure rather than stay at a summer camp I did not even wish to attend in the first place. I think I may just vote for this as well.” Tony and Clint immediately made sounds of approval, but Bruce just looked very apprehensive.

“Are you sure, though? I mean, it’s still space. It could be dangerous to stay here. We could die from- well, anything out here!” Clint shrugged with a wry smirk.

“Yeah and we could drown in a lake at summer camp, what’s your point?” Steve narrowed his eyes at Clint and took a step forward, straightening his back and towering over him.

“Hey! He’s right you know, Barton. We have no idea what’s out there, or what this,” He gestured at the podium and where the screen had been. ”thing actually wants from us. Like Natasha said, for all we know he could be keeping us hostage or make us fight in an actual war or something! You should at least the consider the risk.” Tony snorted and placed his hands in his pockets.

“Risk of what? Getting groomed by some alien? Like that can’t happen on Earth.” Steve gritted his teeth and turned to Tony, visibly holding back himself back from stalking over to him.

“Stark, for Christ’s sake will you knock it off with the jokes for one second?“ Tony took a step back, making a show up putting his hands up and looking mock scared.

“Whoa, watch out guys, it looks like Rogers is a little peeved.” Steve clenched his fists and looked very angry and like he was fighting very hard not to punch something. Or someone.

Natasha rolled her eyes at them and placed a hand on Steve’s shoulder to pull him back from actually hurting Tony, while keeping her eyes locked on her brother and Thor. “We’re just saying that there’s a bigger decision here than just how we’re going to spend our summer here. I mean out of everyone here, who even has a driving license?” Tony raised his hand, along with Thor and Steve sort of raised his hand.

“I have a driver’s permit but no license yet.” She rolled her eyes.

“Right, so two of us can drive a car. And you think that you can just learn to drive a space ship just like that? If we actually say yes to this, there will be no going back. At least on summer camp we’ll still be on Earth and have contact with our friends and families.”

Thor smiled widely at her, as if her serious tone hadn’t faced him at all. “And we will have contact with our loved ones here as well.” He gestured at the small devices on the podium with his arm. “With these we will be able to contact our friends and family just as simply as on camp.”

Bruce folded his arms over his chest and eyed them carefully. “Yeah, assuming they work. And even if they do, I’d still be calmer calling my dad on Earth and not from some other planet or the other side of the galaxy.” Clint tilted his head at him, eyebrow slightly raised.

“Why? There’s not _that_ much difference. You’re still far away from him, whether on camp or in space. It’s not too much difference there.” Natasha smacked him and he yelped in pain, rubbing his arm where a small red mark was starting to form from her hand. “What? It’s true!”

Bruce tightened his grip around himself. “I’m just saying we shouldn’t rush into things. We have an hour to think about this, maybe we should really think this through before we decide what we want to do?”

They all looked between themselves, eyeing the others with cautious and begrudging eyes before nodding to each other, though the air remained tense and cold. Tony grumbled and started to turn away.

“Fine. Let’s do that.” Then he started to walk away from them and the others turned to look after him.

“Where are you going, friend Tony?” Thor called after him and Tony turned to look back at them over his shoulder.

“I’m gonna go explore a bit closer at this ship. If it turns out we _are_ gonna be living here for the summer, might as well get a closer look at everything around here. You sourpusses can sit there and grumble all you want if you feel like it.” Then he turned away and started to inspect everything he passed curiously while also trying to keep his itching fingers in check.

Clint looked after him, then at the others, shrugged and smirked at them. “Yeah, I’m gonna go with him. And he’s right.” He eyed Natasha and Steve with a dry look on his face. “If you killjoys want to stand here and take the fun out of everything, then feel free to.” He then turned and hurried after Tony. “Hey Stark, wait for me! Don’t find anything fun without me!”

“Then get your ass in gear, Barton!” Tony called after him from where he was, observing one of the big machines in the room and running his hands over the cool, white metal. Thor looked after him shrugged and then ran after him.

Natasha and Steve eyed each other with raised eyebrows and folded arms over their chests. It was a look that said _‘can you believe these morons’_. She rolled her eyes and leaned on her hip. “So I take it you’re not too eager to go on adventure either, huh?” Steve pinched his lips and shrugged lightly.

“Well… I mean I can’t say I’m _against_ it necessarily. There’s a part of me that is curious about going on adventures and what we might find. I mean it _has_ to be more exciting than summer camp, right? But still… I can’t help but wonder what exactly this mission is about. That Watcher guy didn’t tell us anything about it other than that it’s secret and important, but that could mean anything!” He then shrugged weakly and looked over at Tony, who along with Clint and Thor was inspecting the big hair dryer machine. “Besides, I’m not exactly jumping at the thought of spending my summer this close to Tony Stark.”

Natasha glared a little at his tone and how he talked about Tony, but chose not to comment and just nodded and dug her nails into her arms, almost cutting through her shirt and she bit her lip. “Yeah, I can’t help but wonder about that too. Like, it could be war or it could be a trick or it could be literally anything. And while I’m not exactly jumping at the thought of what might be on that camp and the things and people there, it’d probably be light-years safer than here.” Steve nodded and looked down at the floor.

“Yeah…” Then he looked over at Bruce. “What do you think Bruce? You have to see how this could be really dangerous, right?” Bruce drew back a little when he was spoken too and immediately tried to make himself look smaller, just like he always did. He took a deep breath and tried to make sense of his thoughts.

Yes, he realized that this whole thing was not only dangerous and risky as hell, but he was also worried about how little they knew about this mission. No facts or anything, just a simple _‘do you want do travel through space or go to camp?’_ What was Bruce supposed to do with that? Tony, Clint and Thor might be more comfortable with rushing in without thinking about risks or consequences, but Bruce really wasn’t and in a way he envied them for it. He wished he was brave enough to say yes to this, but he wasn’t. He was scared and worried about this whole thing and his instincts and gut told him to turn back and run. Or, well, go back to Earth anyway. Because his gut told him that nothing on that summer camp could be quite as dangerous as piloting space ships and landing on planets no human had ever even dreamed about.

And that’s not even mentioning his claustrophobia and the idea of being trapped in this ship for who knows how long and being able to go somewhere else or being able to breathe some fresh air when he needed it.

But at the same time, to go to space and see those new planets… to see new and strange places and creatures that no one on Earth had even dreamed about seeing or existed. He couldn’t deny that the scientist in him wasn’t thinking about it and wanted to see and do it all. Plus, he’d always told himself since his mom died that she would be up here among the stars, despite how he knew that it just couldn’t be true. So in a way, he felt closer to her up here than he’d ever been on Earth since her death.

So in the end, he was torn over what to answer Steve, so he just shrugged and nodded weakly. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I know it’s dangerous and all, but…” He shrugged again and looked away from Natasha and Steve’s prying looks. “I don’t know.”

He looked over Natasha’s shoulder over at Tony and the others, and felt his own curiosity overcome his fear as he looked over the machine and saw Tony and Clint laughing over something. He eventually decided that it couldn’t hurt to look and made his way over to them.

* * *

Tony had already arrived at the hair dryer when Clint and Thor came up to him, and he was running his fingers over the metal and looked over the small display and the buttons on the side. He looked up briefly at the others before looking back at the display.

“So, what do you guys think this could be? The world’s most advanced hair dryer or something?” Clint snorted and fingered on the bowl-like thing, pushing it back and forth a little.

“Yeah, maybe the Watcher guy wants his hair to look great at all times? Maybe that’s what we’re here to do, spread his ideas of hairstyles over the galaxy!” Tony laughed before standing up and circled around the thing. Thor smirked and sat down on the seat, looking up at the upside down bowl over him.

“Perhaps it’s designed to keep our heads warm? It does not appear to have any articles for your hair.” Clint and Tony laughed and Thor’s smirk widened a little. Then he turned somber and looked up at the others.

“Do you believe it’s reckless to choose to go on this adventure? While I admit the idea is very enticing and I do wish to go on this mission, perhaps we are a bit hasty?” Clint’s smile weakened too and he shrugged before folding his arms over his chest.

“Well, yeah, maybe a little. I can’t deny that maybe this could be dangerous or whatever, but still it’s a fucking space adventure! Who in their right mind would say no to that?” Tony nodded and placed his hands on his hips.

“Yeah, I mean, anything is better than that stupid camp! I went into this knowing I would get a summer without Wi-Fi so either I get a summer without Wi-Fi in the woods in the middle of nowhere in being absolutely miserable or I would get a summer of adventure and planets and aliens and God knows what else without Wi-Fi.”

He held up both hands and weighing them up and down, like the different sides of a scale. “Space adventure or summer camp?” He grimaced a little at them and moved his hands up and down. “I think space wins out in that question. At least for me.” He then glared over at Steve, who was still standing over by the podium with Natasha and Bruce. “Though it’d be better if Captain Stick-Up-His-Ass could be dropped back on Earth so the rest of us wouldn’t have to suffer his bitching. Seriously, what’s his problem?” Clint snorted and shook his head.

“No idea, but the guy has been throwing dirty glances at us for the whole day. Maybe he’s just mad his BFFL isn’t here and is taking it out on us.” Tony rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly.

“Yeah, well he’s still an asshole. I mean, what the hell have I ever done to him? I never even talked to him before today for fucks sake, so why does he glare at me like I killed his puppy?” Thor nodded and folded his arms over his broad chest.

“Perhaps he was actually received, how did you phrase it? A stick up his rear? It would make most men rather sour and angry.” That caused Clint and Tony to burst out laughing, with Tony slapping himself on the knee and Clint placing both hands on his knees to keep himself standing somewhat upright.

“That’s probably the most polite way I’ve ever heard that phrase being said before, Thor. I think you and I are gonna get along great if we end up actually going on this mission.” Tony managed to say between his laughter and Clint nodded on the verge of choking on his laughter. Thor looked very pleased with the reaction he’d gotten from his little joke, but then looked away from them and smiled at Bruce as he came up to them.

“Ah, Friend Bruce! I see you’ve come to join us in attempting to make sense of this machinery.” Bruce smiled and brushed some thick strands of hair out of his face.

“Yeah, I guess I have. I’m still not sure what to think of the mission yet, but I’d like a good look at these machines at the very least. Just in case we get placed back on Earth and our memories are wiped of all of this.” Tony nodded and patted his hand against the machine.

“Well then, Brucie Bear, let me introduce the universe’s most advanced hair dryer. It will make sure you’re hair stays warm and fluffy at all times, with extra styling of your hair for no extra charge.” Bruce chuckled and knelt down to look at the display.

“It sure does look like that, doesn’t it? But this looks like you have different programs on it. Maybe it has more than one function?” Tony shrugged with a wry smirk.

“I sure hope so, ‘cause if this is just meant for your hair it takes up a whole lot of space for very little meaningful purpose. I mean, I’m all for good-looking hair obviously, but this seems like very big machine for something that you easily fix with a jar of gel and a towel.”

Clint snorted and ruffled Tony hair, making the slighter shorter guy squawk in outrage. “Your hair ain’t that good-lookin’ Stark. If you have to style it before going out, then you’re clearly not a naturally handsome guy, like me.” He smirked and rested his arm on Tony’s head and leaning on him slightly before Tony pushed him off, looking mighty annoyed.

“In your dreams, Barton! You gotta work hard to look as good as me.” That was only slightly a joke, since Tony knew that he wasn’t a knockout, with his pimples that always refused to go away entirely and the fact that his muscles still refused to appear. But he had very nice, thick hair and while it often refused to look like anything other than the worst of untamable bedheads, big eyes- and yes he had big bulky glasses over them, but still- and nothing on his face looked bad or ugly. But Clint did have better hair with a nice shade of sandy blonde and with an actual hairstyle and puberty had clearly started to take effect on him. He had started to fill out with muscles, he was an inch or so taller than Tony and rarely had pimples.

And the less said about Thor and Steve and how they looked, the better.

_‘Patience Tony. Both your mom and dad have really good looks, just wait for puberty to settle and you’ll look great! Just you wait.’_

At least Bruce still looked like he needed time to go from kid to adult with his body too.

Speaking of Bruce, he had gotten back up from the machine’s side and was now looking over at the other machine in the room. “What do you think this is?” Thor got up from where he was sitting and they made their way over to the machine, Tony and Bruce running their fingers over the dome.

“Well it looks like you can sit at this thing, so maybe it has something to do with food?” Bruce looked at Tony, who seemed to looking for any buttons or display like the hair dryer had had. When he didn’t find anything he just shrugged and straightened up again.

“Well, I can’t find any clues on this thing that can tells us what this is supposed to be. But yeah, it does look like a sitting area, but it’s the weirdest dinner table I have ever seen. And my mom has had some pretty crazy ideas of how to furnish a room.”

Clint sat down on the bench-like seats and looked over the dome. He grimaced and looked up at the others. “Well, it’ll feel a little weird to have this huge dome in front of you if we have to eat here. You can barely see over the top of this thing.” Thor tilted his head and looked it over.

“Perhaps it isn’t any machinery? It looks more like one of the strange artistic exhibitions at the museum we traveled to a few months back.” Tony snorted and ran his hand over the dome. Bruce looked over at the other guys, then back at Steve and Natasha before taking a breath and walking away a few steps to get some distance.

_‘Well, it looks like they’ve decided what to vote for. Steve and Natasha seem to have decided, and Tony, Clint and Thor have definitely decided. So that just leaves me, and I don’t know. Have a grand adventure through space, or just go to summer camp? Stay safe or take a risk?’_

Bruce sighed and leaned his head back against the metal and ran a hand through his curly brown hair. As if it wasn’t hard enough to breathe in this enclosed space with so small windows and everything, the pressure of coming to a decision under such a short amount of time didn’t make it any easier to breathe.

_‘Seriously, that Watcher guy couldn’t have had a ship with slightly bigger windows? Even if they just showed empty space and a bit of Earth, it’d be better than this.’_

He walked up to one of the small-now open- windows and looked out over the stars and dark space. And despite all of his fears and anxiety, seeing all of this vast space, all these stars and Planet Earth was still so mind-blowing. And the idea of seeing more… of seeing so much more that could be out there.

Bruce sighed again and leaned his forehead against the window, his glasses slipping down his nose slightly. _‘Mom, if you’re out there somewhere, please help me make the right choice.’_

When the hour was up, the kids gathered around the podium again as the lights went off again, the screen reappeared and the Watcher’s strange alien form appeared in front of them.

_“Well then, it’s time to vote. Those who wish to go on an adventure through space, press the green button. Those who wish to back to Earth, press the red button.”_ And from the hatch that had given them the strange devices for their phones, now two big buttons revealed themselves, one green and one red.

_“If the results end in a draw, 3-3, against will win and I will put you back on Earth. So you require four votes for space adventure to win. So, go ahead and vote.” _

After The Watcher vanished and the lights came back on again a tense silence fell over the room. Everyone looked at the buttons, waiting for someone to make the first move and be the first to vote. Which, of course, turned out to be Tony. He shoved himself between Clint and Steve and walked up to the buttons with a confidant grin on his face.

“I know I’m not missing this chance! I never back down from a challenge or an adventure.” And so, he slammed his hand down on the green button, which lit up for two seconds and made a whooping sound. Tony smirked and walked back to the others, folding his arms over his chest and looked to his classmates with a _‘well, who’s next?’_ look on his face.

Steve scowled lightly at him, took a deep breath and closed his eyes before walking up to the podium. “Well, I can’t say that going on an adventure like this this isn’t enticing or anything, but I still think the risk is too big considering the unknown variables. So, I say no.” And he pressed the red button, which lit up and made a loud buzzing noise. He stepped back and Clint took his place, also he with a grin on his face.

“Okay, so if choice is between lame or awesome, I’ll always choose awesome! And if I can get even the smallest chance to see actual, real-life aliens in my life on this trip, you can bet your ass that I’ll take it!” And he pressed the green button before going over to Tony, who raised his fist for him to bump.

Natasha stepped up, just as composed and in control of herself as always and looked over at the others with a slightly raised eyebrow. “Well, if no one else here is going to be the responsible one here and make sure no one gets hurt or does anything stupid, I guess I’ll have too. I say no.” The buzzing noise filled the room again she pressed the button before calmly walking over to Steve’s side, arms folded over her chest and leaning on her leg.

Thor marched up to the podium, chest puffed out and head held high with a proud look on his face. “My family comes from a long line of brave men and women who have done many great things in their lifetimes, and I will not show weakness in the face of challenge. And this quest promises great adventure and for an honorable cause. So I will say yes as well.” He slammed his big hand down on the green button, smiling widely at the whooping sound before joining Tony and Clint, who high-fived him and patted him on the shoulder.

So, the results were 2 against 3, which meant one vote would decide the results. And so, everyone turned to Bruce, who still hadn’t voted yet. And poor Bruce stood with his arms folded over his chest and shoulder slightly hunched over.

“Oh man, that means it’s up to me. And I still haven’t decided.” Steve smiled gently and placed his hand on Bruce’s shoulder.

“But you’re a smart guy, Bruce.” Tony, narrowing his eyes at Steve when he saw what he was trying to do, placed his arm around Bruce’s shoulders and grinned at him.

“Yeah, so you’ll choose the adventure, right?” Bruce grimaced at him before shaking off his arm and slowly walking up to the podium, looking over the buttons carefully. Natasha chimed in, a slightly concerned look on her face.

“You won’t have to many open spaces in space, you know. Your claustrophobia won’t like this cramped ship, right?” Bruce bit his lip and eyed the red button, but then Clint ran up and grabbed his shoulder.

“Not too many other scientists will get a chance to see these parts of the galaxy that we will get to see!”

“Uh…” Bruce looked over to the green button, finger hovering inches the button, when Steve grabbed his other shoulder.

“But hey, camp will be so much safer than flying through space or maybe getting stuck on some hostile planet, right?” Bruce head whipped back and forth between the other kids before raising his arms and raising his voice.

“Will you _please_ back off? I can barely breathe here, nevermind think when you crowd me like this!” That made Steve and Clint take a few steps back and Thor looked at them with a very stern look on his face.

“Let the man choose for himself! We have all made our decisions on our own, let him make his.” He then turned to smile gently at Bruce. “Take your time my friend, there is no rush.” Bruce smiled gratefully at him before turning back to the buttons and took a shaky breath.

_‘Okay, time to make a choice here, Banner. Adventure or camp? Risk or safety? What will it be?’_ He swallowed thickly and let his finger hover over the green button, then the red one and then back to green.

He started to go over the pros and cons of each choice in his head again, when he heard Clint mutter under his breath, either talking to Tony and Thor or just talking to himself.

“Figures. He’s a nerd, he doesn’t have the guts.” And Bruce immediately felt his anger boil up, like flicking on a switch and he glared over his shoulder at Clint before, completely without thinking for another second, pressed his finger down on one of the buttons without looking at which one it was.

But before anyone could hear any of sounds from the buttons or say anything, the ship’s lights suddenly started to flicker over by the control panel, loud alarms blared out from speakers and a slightly louder robotic voice spoke from the computer.

_‘Asteroid Warning. Asteroid Warning.’ _

Everyone whipped around the look at the big window beside them and a big, fiery red asteroid was heading towards them at an alarming rate. Tony and Bruce ran towards the controls and looked over the controls.

“Come on, we need to try and get out of the way!” Tony yelled to be heard over the alarms and the robotic voice that kept repeating _‘Asteroid Warning’_ over and over again. Bruce looked from the screens, to the levers and buttons and then out the window at the big asteroid. He sat down in one of the chairs in front of one of the screens and started tapping. The others came running up and Natasha clutched the back of Bruce’s seat tightly.

“What are you doing?” He looked over his shoulder at her for one second before looking back at the computer screen, frantically tapping at the keyboard.

“I’m trying to figure out if this computer can tell us what to do!” Tony glared at him from the middle chair, clutching something that looked like a big joystick.

“We can’t just go through everything in that computer in just a few seconds! We need to act, like yesterday!” Steve leaned over Tony’s shoulder and pointed at the joystick.

“That thing! It’s probably how you steer the ship, with that! Pull on it!” Tony was tugging on the joystick in every direction possible and his eyes flickered over from the asteroid right outside the window and then back to the stick.

“I can’t! It’s stuck, I can’t do anything with it!” Thor came to them with a big, thick book in his hands, flickering through the pages.

“I believe I have found a manual of sorts! Perhaps the answers on how to steer the ship can be found in here!” Clint glared over him and almost slapped the book out of his hands.

“We can’t go through that whole fucking book in less than a minute! There’s just no time, we need to act!” He flew over to Tony’s other side and looked over the joystick, while Tony was still tugging on the thing like a madman.

_‘Asteroid Warning. Asteroid Warning.’ _

“Yes, we fucking get it!” Natasha snarled at the computer before turning back to Bruce and his typing. Steve had placed his hand on Tony’s shoulder and was shaking him wildly.

“Stark, anytime now!” Tony placed both hands around the stick and tugged, when Clint suddenly found a button on the joystick’s side and pushed it to the right, and suddenly the ship jerked wildly to the left and they all fell the floor around the control panel but that asteroid thankfully did not hit the ship. The alarms became silent, the lights came back on and the ship kept flying forward like nothing had happened.

It took about a minute for them all to collect themselves and calm down before they slowly got back up on their feet and looked between each other. Tony and Clint looked at each other, very stunned and still breathing heavily before grinning widely to each other.

“Nice moves, Stark!” Clint raised his hand for Tony to smack, which Tony quickly responded with a hard smack.

“Nice moves, Barton!” Bruce leaned most of his weight on the control panel, looking with wide-open eyes and his glasses hanging from one ear.

“H-How did you know which button to push?” Clint shrugged and shook his head, his expression still looking very high on the adrenaline from the encounter.

“I don’t know. But it looked to be connected to that steering thing, so I just… acted.” Tony snorted and Thor came up them, slapping them both hard on their backs, so hard that they almost fell to the ground again.

“An excellent course of action my friends! You have saved all of our lives with this move, friend Clint. And friend Tony, your steering was quite impressive as well!” Tony and Clint both stumbled from the force from the slaps on their backs and blushed a little from the compliments, but Natasha just grumbled as she brushed her now very tousled hair out of her face and straightened out her clothes.

“Yeah, great driving skills you got there, Stark.” She pulled the hair tie out of her hair and let her long red locks fall over her shoulders and back, rolling her eyes as she combed through her hair with her fingers. “Guys behind the wheel…”

Steve also grumbled a little as he glared over at Tony. “Yeah, maybe next time you could try to not to get our heads cracked open on the floor?” Tony sneered at her and folded his arms over chest.

“Well, I didn’t see you come with any bright ideas or initiatives Rogers, so maybe you should just-“ Then the lights went off again and they turned to look back at the podium as the screen appeared. Steve turned to Bruce, now looking very concerned.

“What button did you push, anyway?” Bruce paled a little as he realized he hadn’t actually looked at which button he had pressed and didn’t know what he had voted for, but before he could answer The Watcher appeared on the screen again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Okay, that was the end of the chapter 3. Hopefully I’ll get chapter 4 done very soon too! And, I know I’ve already said it, but this story in mostly based on a Swedish TV Show (and a little in inspired by TMNT 2012) so a lot of things in here are from that show. So, just so we’re clear on something, pictures on how the machines look can be found on this link: 
> 
> https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1Pr1t00kaCry6VLSciTtoPnU7uhzpq1bA
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave kudos, bookmark and leave your thoughts in the comments. I would also really appreciate it if you subscribed too! Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> And now it’s time to play a game of Spot the Movie Reference! Yeah, I did place a couple of movie references in this, mostly to teen movies like Heathers and Mean Girls, but I also got some inspiration from the 2017 version of IT. Maybe it was a bit too close, but really liked the idea, plus I wasn’t sure how to make a ‘Natasha being bullied scenario’ that didn’t make her seem weak or out of character. Hope it’ll be good enough for you guys.
> 
> Anyway, the story will start officially in the next chapter, this is just an introduction for all the characters and how their lives at school are. I really hope you’ll like it and please leave kudos, bookmark and leave comments! Thanks for reading!


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